OPEN FORUM
New Delhi, 31 May 2006
Bharat Nirman Plan
CHANGING FACE OF RURAL INDIA
By. T.D. Jagadesan
The exodus from rural to urban India, causing population explosion in big and
small cities alike proves beyond even an iota of doubt that the development
process of the last half of a
century of independent India
has left villages far behind the cities. They even lack the basic amenities of
health services, housing, education, safe drinking water, rural connectivity
and communication facilities. The divide
in the growth process is wide enough
to lure the youth from rural to urban areas for better living conditions and
employment opportunities.
Many initiatives had been taken
in the past by successive
governments. Although a change is taking
place, the pace of development is slow and the divide is still wide. To bridge it
and with an aim to catch up with atleast semi-urban areas, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre recently
launched the Bharat Nirman Progremme to change the face of rural India. Its motto is to change the basic
infrastructure in rural areas in the next five years.
Six core areas of infrastructure
development have been identified under the Bharat Nirman Programme for
implementation in a time-bound manner.
These are irrigation, rural connectivity, rural housing, drinking water
supply, rural electrification and rural telephone connectivity.
The Programme envisages: bringing
an additional one crore hectares of unirrigated agricultural land under assured irrigation; connection of all habitation
having a population of one thousand (500) in hilly and tribal areas) with
all-weather roads. The target is to
connect the remaining 66,802 habitations with all-weather roads; provision of
safe drinking water to all villages and habitations in the country;
electrification of the remaining 1,25,000 villages; and construction of 60 lakh
houses for the rural poor.
The Programme is implemented by
the State Governments through the Panchayati Raj bodies. But it is not a Programme for the State Governments
alone. It is an agenda for everybody,
for trade and industry, for farmers, artisans social workers and in fact every
single Indian is either a user or a partner in this gigantic task of nation
building. The Government views Bharat
Nirman Programme as an effort to unlock rural India’s growth potential.
The targets set out in each of
the six core areas are ambitious. The Union Government has, however, shown its
commitment in the very first year of the four-year targeted Programme. The National Committee on Rural
Infrastructure, chaired by the Prime Minister, directly monitors the progress of implementation of all programmes taken up
under Bharat Nirman.
Describing the Bharat Nirman
Programme as an epitome of the UPA Government’s approach to governance, the
Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram while presenting the Union Budget for 2006-07
in Parliament said it is a paradigm shift that will enable the Government to
use the resources thrown up by the engine of growth for building infrastructure
and bringing basic amenities to rural India.
The six areas which are so
critical for unleashing the process
of growth in rural areas got a special attention in the Budget. Allocation for these areas has been increased
by an incredible 54 per cent from Rs.12,160 crore in the current fiscal to Rs.18,696
crore in 2006-07.
The Government admits that there
has been a steady decline in public investment in irrigation over the
years. A large number of projects have
been languishing for want of funds. Under the Programme, major and medium
irrigation projects having a potential to provide assured
irrigation to four million hectares and minor irrigation projects to 2.8
million hectares of agricultural land have been identified.
Besides, there is a plan to
enhance utilization of already completed projects to generate irrigation
potential of additional two million hectares and to harness
ground water resources to generate another one million hectares of irrigation
potential. Already during the first year
of the Programme, more than 944 crore rupees have been released as grant under
the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP).
From Panchayat members to the
area MPs are involved in the implementation of this Programme. No new projects
are planned to be taken up in Andhra
Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu under this Programme as they have
already achieved cent per cent connectivity.
By September 2005, a sum of Rs. 3,749 crore had been released for
connecting 5,337 inhabitations with all-weather roads under the rural roads
programme.
Rural housing shortage is a serious
problem with large population living in jhuggies
or kutcha houses with thatched roofs.
It is estimated that there is an urgent need of about 15 million houses. Under
this Programme, the target is to construct six million houses in four years.
Against the physical target of
56,270 habitations for the provisions of safe drinking water, until January
this year, 47,546 habitations have been covered under the Accelerated Rural
Water Supply Project (ARWSP). Since
1972-73, under the centrally sponsored schemes more than 15 lakh habitations
have provided 37 lakh pumps and one lakh fifty thousand piped water supply
scheme. The task ahead is gigantic.
Rural electrification is another
major challenge before the Government. According to the revised definition of
village with no electricity (operative from 2004-2005), one lakh twenty five
thousand villages and habitations and two crore thirty lakh householders are
without electricity. But about 81 per
cent of the villages are having electricity and some of the states like Goa,
Haryana, Punjab, Nagaland and Tamil Nadu have
achieved cent per cent rural electrification.
In the current fiscal, the Centre has already released the entire
allocation of 1,100 crore rupees for rural electrification and the target of
covering 10.336 villages is expected to be completed.
Under the Programme, the target
is to provide communication facilities to the remaining 66,822 villages in the
country of which more than twenty four thousand are in the states of Rajasthan
and Madhya Pradesh. Another deficient State is Assam
where nearly nine thousand villages are still without a telephone connection.
A three-year programme was
chalked out to provide a telephone connection to all the villages in the
country. The target date is September
2007. Till the end of about seventeen
thousand two hundred villages were provided with a telephone connection this
year. More than 13 thousand villages got
village Public Telephone till 30
September 2005.
Along with Bharat Nirman, the
Government has launched various other initiatives for rural and agricultural
development. Eight flagship programmes –
Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Mid-day Meal Scheme, Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission. Total
sanitation Campaign, National Rural Health Mission,
Integrated Child Development Services, National Rural Employment Guarantee
Scheme and Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban renewal Mission
get the bulk of resources.
A provision of 14,300 crore
rupees has been made in the 2006-2007 budget for the ambitious National Rural
Employment Guarantee scheme as against 11,300 crore rupees in the current
fiscal. The Scheme has already been initiated in 200 districts spread over the
length and breadth of the country. Since
there is a legal guarantee to provide employment for a minimum 100 days in a
year, there is an assurance in the
budget that more funds will be provided, if needed.
The Programme and other flagship
programes are expected to change the face of rural India More than the financial
provisions these lay stress on
physical targets and if implemented sincerely, every household, even in the
remotest corner or the hilly terrain will have a roof over head, a square meal,
market access through better
connectivity and communication facilities. ---INFA to a large extent in the
coming years.
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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