Bharat Nirvana through Bharat Nirman
Posted : August 22, 2005 at 6:18 am [IST]
The government has taken up a grand program of ‘Bharat Nirman‘ to bring prosperity to rural India. And rural India can attain ‘nirvana’ through this ‘Bharat Nirman‘ program. The program in brief is as follows:
Telephone connectivity for the remaining 66,822 villages. The telecom department’s USO fund provides the financial investment.
Electrification of the remaining1, 25,000 villages and connections to an extra 23 million households. The power ministry website, however, says 1.4-1.5 (00,000) villages and 78 million households are yet to be electrified. I don’t know which one is correct.
Provide drinking water to the remaining 78,000 villages.
Connect all the remaining 1,70,000 villages with a population of 1,000 (500 in tribal areas) with a road.
Our President emphasized on the electricity requirements and its solutions in his address on Independence Day eve. PM on the Rajiv Gandhi’s birthday also talked about his concern about power shortage, its consequences and his government’s plan to complete rural electrification within the next 5 years. More interestingly, he emphasized on non-conventional energy sources.
“For cooking, lighting and motive power we must tap a variety of bio-energy technologies including the hi-tech biomass gasification route. I also urge the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources to accelerate the development and deployment of frontier technologies like hydrogen and fuel cells.”
The village community must attempt to set up at least one community-based biomass plant in every village to generate electricity and provide cooking gas to villagers. And it is possible, At one time I wrote about it in my blog. Perhaps, I have received the maximum number of queries from my readers on the topic. The government must encourage biomass plants as well as small hydroelectric projects, especially in hilly regions of the whole of northern India or in states with network of rivers.
India faces a 47 per cent peak energy deficit and has the capacity to generate 127,000 MW. An addition of 150,000 MW of generation capacity in the next 10 years is the requirement.
Drinking water and telephone connectivity may also come through private entrepreneurship too. I am sure some local entrepreneurs will take up the task of providing drinking water through proper treatment at subsidized rate that ensures the elimination of water-related deceases. And the private telecom companies will certainly invest to expand their business in rural India, as their urban business will start getting mature.
On road front, a great work is going on through PMGSY (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna). As per the report in media, the UPA government has furthered the move with larger allocation. Instead of providing just ‘last mile’ road, close to the villages/habitations, it has gone for providing ‘farm-to-market’ connectivity.
Andhra Pradesh already had all habitations with a population of 250 or more connected with some sort of road by March 2004 itself. 67,724 habitations out of 70,195 are already connected with bitumen-topped roads. Even Bihar has agreed to engage Central agencies to implement PMGSY.
All these are grand programs. I myself like many others are skeptical amount the speed and quality of the work implementation under the program that will undoubtedly change the face of rural India. It will positively affect the country’s GDP and cut down on poverty. But the programs require some watchdogs. Why can’t media, business associations such as CII and FICCI, and opposition take that responsibility? And with the bill on the right of information in the offing, I as a senior citizen of the country demand a progress report on these four programs every quarter from the government or from the ministry of project implementation. The government must create some website that provide the information updated regularly. It must clearly indicate the total target for each infrastructure as on the March 31, 2005 in number of villages and measures such as kilometers and then the work completed during the quarter. Media must cover these projects honestly and even the business associations (CII and FICII) must monitor and get independent reports. After all the business houses will get the maximum benefits with opening of the rural markets as well as the cheaper rural sourcing base. And the opposition and their members from those rural constituencies must play the role of information providers and not the obstructers in these national programs of ‘nirvana’.
And if the government so desires and if it is short of fund and resources, there will be many (including me) who can design and host the website to monitor the programs, if it provides the data.
And we know the finance is not a problem or even the work on the programs can be integrated with the Employment Guarantee Scheme. The Worls Bank can also be helping.
- Indra
Category: Government Policy/Administration |
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