Round The States                   

New Delhi, 30 April 2015

Bengal Civic Polls

MAMATA’S REPLY TO SHAH

By Insaf

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has had the last laugh. Her Trinamool Congress had a resounding victory in the civic body polls by bagging 70 of the 92 seats, including capital Kolkatta. It won 114 wards out of 144 in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and 69 of the 91 municipalities in the districts across the State. With a bruised and badgered BJP, failing to win even a single civic body, BJP President Amit Shah must be devastated. Remember, he has been touring the State and holding meetings in Mamata’s bastion claiming that her days were numbered and that the BJP would wipe out the TMC. Far from it, as Mamata says this victory is an answer to “all the slander and canard spread against us.” She has every reason to be jubilant as the victory comes at a time, when her government is besieged by the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. Her MPS and Ministers are under investigation by both the ED and CBI. The frown should now be on Shah’s face and his mentor Prime Minister Modi. The party’s magic after the General elections appears to be wearing off. Only recently, Maharashtra civic polls too gave a verdict against the BJP, opting instead for the Shiv Sena and the NCP. While the BJP may cry hoarse about the polls being rigged, it should stop using it as an excuse for its pathetic performance. Instead, it must introspect and realise that action and not words will yield results. Is Shah seeing the writing on the wall?  

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Competition Amongst States

All State Governments may well soon be seen burning the midnight oil to get their fingers in the Centre’s “Smart cities” pie. On Wednesday last, the Union Cabinet gave its nod for 100 smart cities and urban rejuvenation programme for 500 towns and cities, with a whopping outlay of Rs 98,000 crore. The exercise will be undertaken in the next five years, with the goal of recasting the urban landscape and making such areas more ‘liveable and inclusive’.  The selection for smart cities would be through a ‘city challenge’ competition and the winner would get central assistance of Rs 100 crore per year for five years. Smaller cities and towns having one lakh or more population would benefit from Rs 50,000-crore Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme. State governments can start planning to name the cities they want nominated. For starters 20 cities will be selected. Hope non-BJP ruled States are not short changed. The anxiety follows AMRUT, named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee replacing Congress’ ‘Jawaharlal Nehru’ Urban Rural Mission!

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MP Upstages Centre 

Madhya Pradesh government doesn’t believe in beating around the bush. It has laid out the red carpet for the builder lobby and industrialists to purchase agricultural land for non-agricultural use, while the Prime Minister Modi and his team of Ministers struggle with explanations and justification to get the Land acquisition Bill passed. On Monday last, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government issued an MP Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings (Amendment) Ordinance, 2015 that permits purchase of land even before the requisite diversion of land use. Worse, there is no ceiling on how much can be bought. However, the buyer has been given a timeframe to comply with the legalities, but these are fairly comfortable. It appears that Chouhan wants the industrialist and the real estate lobby to be partners in his development agenda and eased the rules. Not only will they save escalating costs, but have got their land acquisition legalised even without having to ask for it. Sadly, the poor farmer gets relegated to the background yet again!

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Ceasefire With NSCN (K) Off

Nagaland may be going through some anxious moments. The NDA government has decided to act tough as cautioned and has cancelled its ceasefire agreement with the leading Naga insurgent group, NSCN (Khaplang). This comes after 14 long years (since 2001), as the ceasefire so has no progress whatsoever towards a negotiated settlement, as envisioned. Worse, the Home Ministry is of the firm view that the group’s members have been involved in insurgent activities and the latest incident being an ambush on an Army convoy at Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh on April 2, where four Rajputana Rifle personnel were killed. “No group will be tolerated to operate outside the ceasefire operation area and action will be taken against them”, had warned MoS Kiren Rijiju then. Though the Government has done well not to go through the ritual of extending ceasefire time and again, there is apprehension that the no-go could lead to insurgent activity getting back into gear, as happened in the past. Further, a question doing the rounds is what has the Centre achieved with the ceasefire agreement with the NSCN (Isak Muivah) group since 1997? While it has been engaged with it regularly, precious little has been achieved. Time New Delhi looks at a broader picture, especially as it speaks of “ache din” for the North East too. 

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Odisha Incentives

Odisha Government Appears to be determined to make life better for its people in the Maoist areas. One of the main problems is that doctors are leaving government hospitals and community health centres in poverty ridden zones Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput as well as Maoists affected areas. Naveen Patnaik cabinet on Tuesday last, considered various options for retaining the doctors in the hospitals. It has now found a way out to entice the medical community by hiking their salaries. It has divided the state into four zones as per the accessibility and venerability to Maoist violence. Specialists doctors in four zones will get Rs.80000 p.m. including 40000 as incentive. Likewise the government has decided that a specialist inaccessible areas in coastal districts could get anything between 1.5 lakh to 1.8 lakh. All others working in remote areas will get 100 per cent hike in their salaries. Hope this turns out to be the right ‘treatment’ to the ailing problem of Maoists in the State.

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Haryana Perks

Haryana MLAs seem to be taking a cue from the Parliamentarians. They want more and better perks and the Manohar Lal  Khattar government is learnt to be obliging. As per reports, when the MLAs were being given their free laptops and printers (like MPs), a member raised the issue of increasing the car and house loan—from Rs 10 to 20 lakhs and Rs 40 to Rs 60 lakhs respectively. But soon there were additional demands —the MLAs must get drivers and computer operators. This the Government has put on hold. While the decision to on the former is uncertain, Khattar tried to convince the MLAs not to demand an operator for their laptops. “If I can learn how to use the computer at my age, so can the others,” he told some of them. Will they make an attempt at least or prefer to burden the exchequer more?---INFA  

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)