By IANS
New Delhi : Uttarakhand Chief Minister B.C. Khanduri's past experience in road infrastructure may come in handy for implementing the prime minister's rural roads scheme, a central minister said Thursday.
Central Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh told a group of Uttarakhand newsmen – in the first ever satellite video press conference organised at Krishi Bhawan with Dehradun – that their state's performance on the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) was dismal.
The scheme was conceived by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee during the rule of National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Khanduri was the then minister of state in charge of surface transport, responsible for implementing Vajpayee's grand vision of constructing the Golden Quadrilateral connecting North-South-East-West, implying Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai, through fast track motorways.
But on the PMGSY front, Uttarakhand has not been able to utilise even half of the funds allocated to the state from 2000, when the scheme was conceived, up to last year, the minister said.
"The entitlement of the state from 2000 till 2006-07 was Rs.4.9 billion, against which only Rs.2.28 billion could be released by the centre for lack utilisation certificates."
He said he had held discussions with Khanduri, and the chief minister assured him that he would personally supervise the progress of PMGSY.
Singh also rejected persistent demands from the state to amend and lower the below poverty line (BPL) standards to increase the poverty quota for Uttarakhand. He said there were 13 different parameters on a one to four scale to determine the level of poverty of a family all over the country.
One of the parameters is the state of dwelling, whether it is a mud hutment with a thatched roof, a brick/stone house with a pucca roof, and so on and so forth.
The Uttarakhand lobbyists argue that it is not possible for even the poorest of the poor in the hills to live in mud dwellings or move around bare-chested as in the plains. Just because they live in pucca houses or they are fully clothed, or have a level of education, does not mean they are any the less poor, they say.
But the minister insisted that these parameters were finalised after a lot of effort and discussion at different levels to be fair to all throughout the country. He agreed, however, that there was always scope for improvement.