India sets Rs. 80 bn plan for rural
infrastructure development.
Roads, railways, electricities, water supplies and
telecommunications; what else 70 per cent of one billion plus population
is waiting. Will the virtual figure of improving these in rural areas
show its face in reality. Time will break the pause.
One of the main relation between project made and project done is the
corelation between ‘cause’ and ‘effect’. If the ‘cause’
runs in a positive direction, the ‘effect’ is always positive.
In the development sector, which generally is a very long period plan, ‘cause’
will never affect the mass. It is always the ‘effect’ which
matters. Promises are made and promises broken. Its nothing new among
Indian politicians. Still, lets hope for the better tomorrow in the
infrastructure development sector which was served deliciously in the
Lok Sabha in the long two hour speech by the Harvard-educated
lawyer-turned-politician Mr. P. Chidambaram.
For the development of Rural India, Chidambaram invited private
investment in the rural infrastructure plan to implement the project ‘Bharat
Nirman’, outlined by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam last week. The
annual funding of this four years plan is Rs. 80 billion. Bharat Nirman
is a business plan for building infrastructure in areas of irrigation,
roads, housing, water supply, electrification and telecommunication
connectivity by 2009. Our FM is confident about ‘Bharat Nirman’
and mentioned it to be “an achievable project”.
The Targets:
- Extention of irrigation facilities to additional 10 million
hectares.
- Providing rural roads to inhabitations with a population of
1,000 people in plains.
- Providing the same to inhabitations of 5,000 people on hills.
- Building 6,00,000 additional low-income houses.
- Providing drinking water facilities to 74,000 habitations who are
currently lacking this facility.
- Providing power connections to 1,25,000 more villages involving
connectivity to 23 million houses.
- Providing telecommunication facilities to 66,822 more villages.
It will be a giant step in development of the rural India if the ‘effect’
comes out with flying colours after four years. As in the
telecommunication sector, only 1.1 per cent of the total national
density is in rural areas. According to the promises made, it will be
increased to more than eight per cent. According to Kalam, Rural India
should be seen as a growth engine and public investment is required in
the area of rural infrastructure to unleash its growth potential. If all
goes well, Bharat Nirman will eradicate poverty, provide excellent and
affordable opportunities for education and skill development for all
citizens. Health will surely improve and higher income level groups will
be generated in India.
An allocation of Rs 9,308 crore has been made for the North Eastern
region for the fiscal 2005-06. Out of this Rs 459 crore has been alloted
as a special package for highway development in this region.
Kumarghat-Agartala and Lumding-Silchar-Hiribam-Imphal projects would be
supported with additional funds outside the Railway Budget as projects
of national importance. According to FM all ministries and departments
are required to allocate at least 10 per cent of their Budget for
schemes and programmes in this region.
The burgeoning foreign exchange reserves for will be used for
infrastructure development henceforth. All disinvestment receipts will
go to the National Investment Fund and used for social sector projects
and it will not be taken as capital receipts nor as revenue receipts.
It is well said, if ‘T’ is zero, everything is zero. ‘T’
stands for TIME. 2009 is a bench mark for Chidambaram to prove him and
his ‘Dream Budget’ compatible to Indian Development Makers.
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2005-06
