Rs. 75,000 cr for 1,500 backward sub-districts

Budget 2013: Govt surveys have shown underdeveloped pockets in developed cities which need attention. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Feb 21, 2013, 11:55:55 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Mukhtsar in Punjab or Gurgaon in Haryana are hailed for being developed suburbs. But, a reality check by the government shows that there are pockets of backwardness in many such posh districts and bringing developmental parity in these places needs a special focus.

The government has decided on a focused approach in 1,500 such sub-districts under a revamped national developmental programme called Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF), with an expected expenditure of Rs 75,000 crore in the next four years.

To be launched with initial funding of Rs 45,000 crore for first two years, the second tranche of money of about R30,000 crore would be available for those sub-districts, which are able to achieve certain levels of development and introduce governance reforms.

"It is likely to be unveiled in the 2013 budget to smoothen the harder fiscal consolidation aspects of the budget. It would be launched from the next financial year," said a senior government official.

The Planning Commission has already circulated a cabinet note on wider and bigger BRGF, which has so far covered around 150 backward districts in the country.

"The district level focus has not helped as in many places the money has been spent on politically more influential blocks which may not be backward," the official said, while explaining the rationale for the new rural development focus.

So, instead of districts the Planning Commission has identified 1,500 most backward sub-districts in the country on the basis of 2011 Census data.

The data showed that there were many untouched "frontiers" of backward regions in the advanced districts such as Muktsar, which have not been covered under the government's special programmes for backward regions, said planning commission member Mihir Shah.

With new BRGF, the government also intends to scrap small programmes meant for undeveloped regions initiated purely for political gains such as the financial package for Kalahandi, Balangir and Koraput (KBK) region in Orissa and 80 naxal affected districts.

The Centre also intends to play some politics by initiating the fund to quell demand of states such as Bihar for special status.

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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