Development is the buzzword haunting us ever since the day of independence. Every political denomination that comes to power after general elections at the Centre or in the States first begins business with the mantra of development. They think that the only slogan that will keep them saddled in the seat of power is development. Therefore, in a bid to brainwash the people in respective constituencies, all they need to do is to drum up development of the particular constituency, region or sub-region as the panacea of its prevailing ills and deprivations.
Perhaps they are not far from the truth. However, the negative aspect is that it has become a habit of our leaders when they are in power to publicly make tall promises of development to lure the people and then forget whether these promises are fulfilled or not. This is simply the politics of convenience and not of serious effort of building the nation. The normal process of making public announcement of any mega project of development is to see that it has gone through the mill and more especially through various layers of Finance Ministry which has to provide funds. How come that a minister or a responsible public leader makes on spot announcement of a project and then never pays a visit to the site to see for himself if that project is underway. We have a glaring case in sight pertaining to our State. After the Union Government announced the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), the J&K State Government in 2008 forwarded to the Union Rural Development Ministry a scheme of building one hundred roads mostly in remote and inaccessible parts of the State. The scheme was cleared by the said Ministry under Phase 8 and Phase 9 in July 2012. It is almost four years that the project stands sanctioned but the State Government has not been able to bring it to completion. The Rural Development Ministry reminded the State Government repeatedly of its commitment to bring the project to completion but the State Government has made cost escalation as the main reason for non-completion of the scheme.
It is a paradoxical situation. Four years elapsed between the submission of the project and sanctioning of the project. Obviously, there has been the cost escalation in four years. How come that the planners at the central level, while sanctioning funds do not take into account the time factor in relation to cost expenditure. The estimated expenditure in 2012 cannot be the same as in 2008. Therefore, in the first place the sanctioning authority should have taken this point into consideration at the time of making cost estimates. Why they failed to address this important question is not known. Secondly, it is now four years down the lane when sanction was accorded to the one hundred roads project. With whatever funds were available to the State Government, it should have at least brought a food portion of the contemplated roads to completion and at the same time approached the Union Government with the progress thus far made and request for additional expenditures on the project. In this way we find that there has been laxity on both sides the Central Government and the State Government. Not complying with the roadmap which invariably comes with every central scheme is also one of the reasons why our State lags behind in time frame of the project.
This situation is not peculiar to the PMGSY only. Many of the Centrally sponsored schemes face this problem and are left half way. We have in earlier editorials also take up this issue and suggested that a proper mechanism is needed for addressing this issue once for all. Imagine in what dire need does or rural population stand in regard to road connectivity. This is a hilly state and most of the roads especially in remote areas run over hills and mountains because the population is scattered over large parts of the mountains. Whether the Central Government is at fault or whether the onus of not completing the roads comes to the doorsteps of the State Government, it is the people at large who have suffered owing to non-seriousness of authorities at some place. That is why we said in the beginning that Governments and political leaders make a bombast declaration of projects at public rallies but seldom care to know the ultimate fate of such projects.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel