Bihar may not get much in revamped BRGF

Finance minister P Chidambaram's olive branch to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of more funds before next elections through revamped Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) would not translate much for the backward state in the next financial year.

Updated on: Mar 2, 2013, 22:15:42 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Finance minister P Chidambaram's olive branch to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar of more funds before next elections through revamped Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) would not translate much for the backward state in the next financial year.

Data available with the Planning Commission on the fund shows that already 36 of the 37 districts of the state are covered under the national programme launched in 2008. The only beneficiary from Chidambaram's announcement could be the district of Siwan, if it gets covered under new parameters to measure backwardness.

The planning commission officials said that Bihar may get Rs. 1,500 crore from the revamped fund, slightly higher than the money in the current financial year.

The reason for Bihar not getting much despite the finance minister naming the state in his speech is widening the ambit of BRGF without substantial increase in allocations.

From next financial year, existing independent government programmes for ---- Bundelkhand, 82 naxal affected districts and Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput (KBK) region (Orissa) --- would be merged with the fund. But, the money allocated for scheme already covering 250 districts in the country has been increased by just Rs. 1,500 crore.

All of the additional funds would not go to Bihar, planning commission officials assured.

IF the officials are to be believed many existing beneficiary pockets in Bihar may be left out of the scheme as the government intends to provide from district level to block level approach. Around 1,500 backward blocks identified on basis of 2011 Census data would be covered.

The officials, however, said that most of the blocks of Bundelkhand region in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and in KBK region in Orissa would get covered under the rejigged scheme to be launched from next financial year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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