India News and Features Alliance (INFA) - New Thrusts Planned:Economic Boom In North-East, by Insaf,17 October 2007

India’s long-neglected North-East region and its States have reason to be on cloud nine. They have been assured an economic boom in the next five years by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and profitable trading with South-East Asia by the External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee. Both were speaking at a three-day conference at Guwahati last week on India’s Look East Policy and the challenges for sub-regional cooperation. The Eleventh Five Year Plan will allocate Rs.12,793 crore from the Central Government for development of roads in the region. Besides, Rs.9,500 crore to Rs.10,000 crore will be invested for improving rail connectivity. There are also proposals to provide rail heads to Meghalaya and Sikkim and airports to Kohima, Itanagar and Sikkim. Ahluwalia even suggested a Guwahati-based airline for operating within the region.

Equally promising was the first-ever North-East India Investment Opportunities Week held earlier in Bangkok at the initiative of Mani Shankar Aiyar, Union Minister for Development of North-East Region (DONER). At least eight MoUs were signed in regard to road construction and agriculture, in a conference attended by 280 entrepreneurs from India and 150 from Thailand. The Sikkim Government showed interest in setting up casinos and five-star hotels. Meghalaya identified medicinal plants, roses and strawberries for potential export. The most luring offer came from Thailand’s Department of Commerce. The Thais, it said, would be keenly interested in importing vegetables and fruit from the North-East instead of China, once the Free Trade Agreement comes into force later this year. Indian vegetables and fruit are much cheaper. But there is one major hurdle. The Thais know little about the region so far.

India has reason to be proud of its Panchayati Raj as it has taken democracy to the grassroots. Shockingly, however, the system is badly letting down the aam aadmi in one crucial sector: development. Only the other day, the Union Panchayati Raj Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, expressed concern over the failure of the Panchayats to utilize the funds earmarked for them due to non-availability of district plans. He told a national conference on District Planning under the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) in New Delhi that of the Rs.4,000 crore earmarked for the Panchayats this year only Rs.222 crore was disbursed as they could not meet the criterion required to utilize these funds. Of the 250 districts covered under BRGF, only 53 had district plans and only 31 met the eligibility criteria.

At least five States have so far not even bothered to set up District Planning Committees. Heading this list is Gujarat of Narendra Modi, who loudly claims to have made his State a development model for the rest of India. The others are Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra. Mercifully, for the common man, Aiyar has bent over backward to be helpful. His Ministry has decided to make available last year’s unutilised funds in the current financial year for the construction of Panchayat ghars, anganwadi centres, educational activities and sports facilities, kitchens for mid-day meals and housing for the poor. The States and their panchayats clearly need to mend their scandalous ways.

Gujarat has joined the growing list of States where the farmers have committed or are committing suicides. Thanks to information secured by a social activist, Bharat Jhala, under the Right to Information Act, the Gujarat Governments has admitted 489 cases of farmer suicides since 2003. The State Government was reluctant to provide the information but it agreed to do so when the Central Information Commissioner intervened. Even now, according to Jhala, information on six districts has not been made available. What is more, the data collected shows “6,055 accidental deaths of farmers”. These have yet to be probed. Clearly, the suicides indicate an ominous trend in the agrarian sector of Gujarat, no matter Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s tall boasts on development.

The blast in a Ludhiana cinema hall last week is a grim reminder that India’s security apparatus leaves much to be desired both at the Central and State level. No matter, the vacuous rhetoric of teaching the terrorists a lesson. In fact, the Union Home Ministry is so busy curbing Pakistan-sponsored jehadis that it seems to have missed out the latest warning bells from the ever-expanding Naxalites menace. Reportedly, the Red Brigade is now systematically moving terror into new States like Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. According to intelligence sources, they are busy setting up regional, zonal and State committees with special focus on targeting urban cities and towns. What is more, two principal industrial belts have been identified for urban mobilization: Bhilai-Ranchi-Dhanbad-Kolkataa and Mumbai-Pune-Surat-Ahmedabad.

The controversy over Himachal Assembly poll dates has largely blown over. The Election Commission has turned down the Congress Party’s plea for postponement of the two phase poll on November 14 and December 19 to sometime in February since the term of the Assembly expires only on March 9. The EC has, however, agreed to consider the State Education Board’s request to prepone the December poll by 15 days to avoid a clash with the School Board Exam and non-availability of school infrastructure and teachers for election duty. Importantly, the E.C. has blown sky high the Congress claim that advancement of the poll would lead to confusion through the creation of two elected Assemblies. It has clarified that “after the notification of a new House the old House ceases to exist” in accordance with law!

Talk of energy and one’s thoughts automatically turn to thermal, hydro-electric or solar power --- and, till last week, to nuclear power, thanks to the Manmohan Singh-Bush deal. Few ever think of wind as a source of much-needed power. Yet not many are aware that the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) generates 1,000 MW from wind energy which is equal to what the State generates from its hydro stations. True, wind power has its problems. Until Monday last week, for instance, the TNEB was getting 1,000 MW from the wind mills. But generation drastically dropped to 19 MW when the wind pattern changed dramatically. However, the breakdown in supply was only for short periods as West Bengal, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh promptly responded to the TNEB’s SOS and graciously diverted 300 to 400 MW each!

Think Jharkhand, think scandal. Since its inception a few years ago, notoriety is synonymous with the State. The latest in Jharkhand’s chequered history of scams is the State Government’s reported decision to grab prime fertile agricultural land, valued at Rs one crore per acre, to build homes for the MLAs. The property belongs to the Indian Council of Agriculture Research’s Horticulture & Agroforestry Research Programme (HARP) for field trials of important crops and lies along the busy Ranchi-Jamshedpur highway. Scandalously, the MLAs housing cooperative society earlier rejected the site allotted to it at Malsiring village as the proposal to build the State’s new Capital there had been cancelled. Leading to a crash in land value, only Rs 2 lakh per acre. Sadly, the Chief Minister Madhu Koda who is member of the MLAs society, seems unperturbed by the heartburn among the HARP employees about their future. ----- INFA