E-Paper
Highways to welfare funds: 4 poll-bound states get infra boost
New Delhi: Investments on infrastructure projects ranging from fishing harbours to highways and metro rail networks, a welfare fund for tea garden workers and quotations from the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore and Thiruvalluvar in finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech underscored the Centre’s focus on states headed for elections in the coming months
New Delhi: Investments on infrastructure projects ranging from fishing harbours to highways and metro rail networks, a welfare fund for tea garden workers and quotations from the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore and Thiruvalluvar in finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech underscored the Centre’s focus on states headed for elections in the coming months.
Assembly elections are due by April -May in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam, along with the Union territory of Puducherry. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is sparing no effort wo win West Bengal and Puducherry, at least improve its position in Kerala and Tamil Nadu and retain power in Assam.
The BJP is paying special attention to these states, especially West Bengal, the state with the third largest representation in the Lok Sabha with 42 seats.
‘’Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark,’’ Sitharaman quoted from Tagore to emphasize how India is well poised to be a land of promise and hope in a world that is battling to end the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
And for good measure, she also quoted Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar: “A king/ruler is the one who creates and acquires wealth, protects and distributes it for common good.”. .
Among the projects she unveiled for the poll-bound states were 675 km of highways in West Bengal worth Rs25,000 crore; more than 1,300 kms of highways valued at Rs. 34,000 crore in Assam, where work is already in progress on roads worth Rs19,000 crore; and 1,100 km of highways in Kerala with an investment of Rs. 65,000 crore .
Her budget also proposed ₹1,000 crores for the welfare of tea workers, especially women and their children, in Assam and West Bengal—a major social issue that has wider political ramifications in the BJP’s citadel in north Bengal and Assam.
“We will undertake future dedicated freight corridor projects namely East-Coast Corridor from Kharagpur to Vijayawada, East-West Corridor from Bhusaval to Kharagpur to Dankuni and North-South corridor from Itarsi to Vijayawada. Detailed Project Reports will be undertaken in the first phase.” Kharagpur and Dankuni are key towns in West Bengal.
Two more road projects running through the poll-bound states also found a mention in the budget speech. Sitharaman announced that Bengaluru–Chennai and Chennai–Salem expressways will be contracted out soon and construction work on them would start in FY21-22.
These projects will not only fill critical gaps in connectivity in these states but also generate jobs for locals.
The long list of infrastructure projects also includes Central counterpart funding for 11.5 kms in the second phase of the Kochi Metro Railway, 118.9 km in Phase-II of the Chennai Metro Railway and similar projects in Bengaluru and Nagpur.
The finance minister also announced plans for fishing harbours in Kochi, Chennai and Bengal’s Petuaghat apart from Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam and Odisha’s Paradip. “We will also develop inland fishing harbours and fish-landing centres along the banks of rivers and waterways,” the minister said.
The BJP was able to open its account in Kerala in the last assembly polls. It has three MLAs in Bengal but in the 2019 national elections, the party won 18 seats in the Lok Sabha, ts best tally ever in the largest eastern state. The BJP doesn’t have any seat in Tamil Nadu, but hopes to be part of a key alliance with the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
“As expected, the FM has paid special attention to election-bound states. She announced large capital outlays for Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Assam. People are not fools: they know that the proposals are only outlays and the actual expenditure will happen only after the schemes are approved,” former finance minister P Chidambaram said.
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