With eye on polls, UPA to fast-track schemes

The year 2013 would see the UPA government switching to poll-mode by putting big investments on fast-track and announcing popular schemes, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jan 7, 2013, 01:44:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The year 2013 would see the UPA government switching to poll-mode by putting big investments on fast-track and announcing popular schemes.

The first big-bang of the year would happen in January when recently constituted Cabinet Committee on Investments (CCI) — mandated to prescribe time limits for approvals and clearances by the ministries — would give directions for approvals to infrastructure and manufacturing projects worth Rs.40,000 crore.

The projects include dedicated rail corridors, new ultra-mega power plants, expansion of existing ports in Mumbai, Kandla and Visakhapatnam, Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor and road projects.

"I think the CCI will send the first positive signal of 2013 for economic revival before the budget," a senior government functionary said.

Abhaya Agarwal, executive director of Ernst and Young, said the CCI approach would mean “short-term solutions” leading to "long-term" investor faith.

The general budget, the last one before 2014 general elections, would offer free generic medicines to the poor, initiate pilots in each district for universal health coverage scheme and cover entire poor population under the existing Rashtriya Swasth Bima Yojana.

Giving of a unique identification or Aadhaar number-enabled mobile phone, a bank account for each household, banking facility in each panchayat and bringing more schemes under direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme may also be announced in the budget.

Insurance bill and land acquisition bill may also get a push, government sources said.

In June, after the budget session, the government would announce its new poverty estimates claiming best ever annual reduction of two percentage points in number of poor in India.

Reason: doubling of average income of household between 2004 and 2012. "Except Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the poverty in absolute numbers had fallen in all states," a senior plan panel functionary said.

The last big bang before the elections is expected to be a meeting of National Development Council — a body of chief ministers — to showcase the its achievements. “The agenda could be inclusive growth,” a senior plan panel official said.

Amid this, the government would unleash Rs. 100 crore media blitzkrieg on its achievements in the last nine years.

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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