Rs 49K­ crore package for Marathwada

AURANGABAD:The Devendra Fadnavis government on Tuesday announced a package of Rs49,248 crore for eight districts of Marathwada region in a special cabinet meet in

AURANGABAD:The Devendra Fadnavis government on Tuesday announced a package of Rs49,248 crore for eight districts of Marathwada region in a special cabinet meet in Aurangabad, after a gap of eight years. The package comes in the backdrop of state-wide protests by the Maratha community, which is dominant in the region, and the ensuing corporation and district council elections due in the next six months.

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Although the package for the drought-hit region covers almost all areas including irrigation, agriculture, roads, railways, sports, housing and forest development; most of the projects that were announced had already been cleared by the cabinet along with a financial allocation. Some of the schemes were announced by the Centre with financial allocations.

Experts said this highlighted how the government’s decision to hold the meet in Aurangabad was a political move to flag its development plan for the region, assuage the farmers hit by drought and deluge and show its support to Marathas .

The CM announced two major irrigation projects and a series of smaller projects will be completed at a cost of Rs9,291 crore in the next 2-3 years. The cabinet also gave its nod to the water grid estimated to cost Rs13,000 crore.

The CM also announced 23.66 TMC water will be diverted to Marathwada from the Krishna basin by initiating work on the Nira-Bhima and Bhima-Sina canals. He said the government has decided to spend Rs4,800 crore on this long-pending project, declared by many water experts as a pipe dream, in the next four years.

“Around 78% of the crop loss has been covered under prime minister’s crop insurance scheme, while the remaining loss will be compensated from the National Disaster Response Fund,” he said.

“The irrigation projects are part of the government’s decision of completing 327 projects costing Rs57,400 crore to be raised from the Centre’s funding and floating irrigation bond. Similarly, the two railway lines (Ahmednagar-Beed-Parli and Wardha-Nanded) were approved by the state cabinet with 50% of its share allocation a couple of months ago,” said an official from the government.

“We are not calling it a package, but a development plan, which will be game-changer for the region,” said the CM.