By Rajeev Ranjan Roy, IANS
New Delhi : Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, has a poor record in building rural infrastructure, officials in India’s Planning Commission say.
A review by the plan panel of Bharat Nirman, the central government’s flagship programme to develop rural infrastructure, points to laxity on the part of the state government in implementing different components, according to the officials, who expressed the unhappiness of the Planning Commission with the state government in this regard.
Only 170,950 hectares of major and minor irrigation potential was created in the state till October 2007 against the cumulative target of 825,160 hectares, the review found. The creation of irrigation potential is a key component of Bharat Nirman.
“The overall physical achievement stands only at 490,820 hectares of irrigation potential creation against the target of 977,240 hectares. Similarly, only 1,675 habitations faced with drinking water problems have been taken care of against the target 5,062 habitations,” a Planning Commission official said on condition of anonymity.
In terms of providing and upgrading road connectivity, only 2,312 habitations were covered till October 2007 against the cumulative target of 4,902 habitations.
“Given the execution pace, the state government would hardly be able to meet the targets by 2009,” the official said.
The plan panel intends to raise the issue with state government officials when they come over to the commission to finalise the annual outlay for 2008-09.
“Even otherwise, the matter has been taken up with the state governments through official communications,” an official said here.
“Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has the onerous challenge to set the country’s most populous state on the fast track of development and economic prosperity. Though the state has performed well on some fronts like constructing houses for the poor, it lags behind Bihar on many of the socio-economic indicators,” the official added.
The plan panel’s Uttar Pradesh Development Report says the state trails the rest of the country in almost every respect. In 2001-03, the average growth of the state was only 2.24 percent against the national rate of 4.88 percent, the report said.
In the case of other central programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), Uttar Pradesh has trailed states like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Both Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have provided employment for around 60-70 days out of the 100 days promised. But Uttar Pradesh has been able to muster up only 30-35 days of employment.
The state has the lowest percentage of electrified villages and is the second lowest in terms of per capita power consumption.
“The household access to power is just about 32 percent, much below the national average of 84 percent,” the report said.