PM to meet CMs of UP, Bihar, MP to speed up rural development

New Delhi, Sep 21 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said he would soon hold meetings with the Chief Ministers ofnine states, including Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh, for speeding up rural development under the Rs 1,74,000 crore Bharat Nirman project.

Dr Singh expressed his intention while reviewing the progress of the six components of rural infrastructure development projects under Bharat Nirman for 2005-06.

There are seven states with over 90 per cent of backlog in the area of rural roads. These are Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkand, and Orissa.

There are six states -- Asom, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal -- with over 90 per cent of backlog in the area of rural electrification.

''The Prime Minister has directed the Planning Commission to organise a separate meeting for him with the Chief Ministers of these states during the ensuing NDC meet to request them to act on these programmes with urgency so that all targets are achieved on schedule,'' a PMO spokesman said.

For the Rural roads programme, a seperate window for Bharat Nirman under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund has been created to source Rs 16,500 crore which is expected to be approved by the cabinet shortly. The new window will meet the funding gap (Rs 48,000 crore, including cess and EAP) of the programme in full, the PMO said.

The meeting noted that most of the targets of Bharat Nirman for the first year had been achieved.

Among the six components, progress in four -- rural telephony, rural water supply, rural housing and coverage of new kilometers of roads under the rural roads programme -- exceeded the targets.

The targets under the components of rural electrification were also substantially achieved though there was a shortfall in the component of irrigation.

Bharat Nirman seeks to cover all villages in India with electricity, all weather roads, potable water, electricity and telephones by 2009. In addition, 60 lakh new houses are to be constructed and one crore hectares brought under irrigation.

Under rural roads, 18,708 kilometers were constructed against a target of 15,492. Under rural telephony, so far 30,251 villages out of 66,822 stand covered. And for rural water supply under the category of slipped back habitations against a target of 34,373 habitations, 70,416 were covered.

The target for the uncovered habitations was 11,879 against which 11,526 were covered. In the area of rural housing against a target of 15 lakh houses for 2005-06, 15.41 lakh houses were constructed.

Under Rural electrification against a target of 10,000 villages to be electrified, 9819 villages were connected in 2005-06. However, 2006-07 and 2007-08 are critical for the programme as the target has been hiked to 40,000 villages per year.

A new system of franchisees for distribution has also been set up under the programme with the franchisee being self help groups and entreprneurs others. In irrigation, the basic responsibility is with the state governments. So far not all states have sent their reports and from among the states reporting, 0.9 million hectares capacity has been created against a target of 1.9 million hectares for 2005-06.

UNI SN AK GC1712