Maharashtra to have CM’s Gram Sadak Yojana soon

* State also mulling over Skill Development Scheme of its own
* Sudhir Mungantiwar, Finance and Planning Minister, reviews draft annual plans of six districts in Nagpur Division

By Kartik Lokhande 
Soon, Maharashtra Government will have its own scheme covering rural roads on the lines of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). The scheme, which is being referred to as ‘Mukhyamantri Gram Sadak Yojana’ or Chief Minister’s Rural Roads Scheme, will cover village roads and other district roads. 

Sudhir Mungantiwar

Sudhir Mungantiwar, Finance and Planning Minister, disclosed this in a meeting held at Divisional Commissionerate here on Wednesday. The meeting was called to review draft annual plans of Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur, and Gadchiroli districts in Nagpur Division. During separate discussions with Collectors of respective districts, Mungantiwar asked the officials of departments concerned to move proposals for rural roads under the proposed scheme.
After the meeting, Mungantiwar told the media that he had reviewed the draft plans of six districts and had made certain suggestions. As far as Nagpur district is concerned, he said, the ceiling on annual plan size was Rs 180.47 crore. As against this, the District Planning Committee (DPC) has proposed ‘additional’ demands of Rs 264.12 crore. “We have not finalised the annual plans discussed today. We will discuss the annual plans with Chief Minister and then finalise those,” said the Finance and Planning Minister. Among several new schemes, a special training institute/university may be started in Wardha district, he added.
According to Mungantiwar, various Government colleges, medical colleges had to depend upon DPC for allocation of fund for developmental works and strengthening of infrastructure. “Often, fund availability through DPCs is inadequate for them. People from across Vidarbha region and adjoining states visit Nagpur, which is Second Capital of Maharashtra, for medical care as well as education. Considering this, we must think if separate fund could be made available to Government colleges and medical colleges in Nagpur,” he observed.
“The suggestion of Finance and Planning Minister regarding rural roads is significant. A huge chunk of annual plans of various districts is spent on works relating to rural roads. This leaves little money for other developmental works. With village roads and other district roads getting covered under proposed Mukhyamantri Gram Sadak Yojana, much of district plan fund could be saved. This saved fund could be utilised for district-specific initiatives,” said S J Dharmale, Deputy Commissioner (Planning).
Talking to the media after the meeting Dharmale said that the State Government was mulling over its own Skill Development Scheme to provide training to youths in Maharashtra. This initiative also will save money spent on training through district plans. “Thus, more fund will be available for other developmental works under district plans,” he added.
Meanwhile, it is gathered that proposed ‘Mukhyamantri Gram Sadak Yojana’ will aim at providing all-weather roads in rural areas. Pankaja Munde, Rural Development Minister, had made a statement recently that her ministry had made a presentation in this regard before Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister. Soon, a proposal may be placed before the State Cabinet for approval. The scheme may be implemented in three phases and cover villages with population of even 250 as those have not been covered under any other scheme.
Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Guardian Minister of Nagpur district; Rajkumar Badole, Social Justice Minister; Deepak Kesarkar, Minister of State for Finance and Planning; Ambarish Atram, Guardian Minister of Gadchiroli district; Ramdas Tadas, MP; Sudhakar Deshmukh, Sudhakar Kohale, Sameer Kunawar, and other MLAs from different districts in Nagpur Division; Shobhatai Fadnavis, Rajendra Mulak, Nago Ganar, and other MLCs; Shrikant Singh, Principal Secretary (Planning); Praveen Pardeshi, In-charge Secretary of Chandrapur district; Anoop Kumar, Divisional Commissioner, Nagpur; were present prominently in the meeting.
Abhishek Krishna, Nagpur Collector; Dr Amit Saini, Gondia Collector; N Naveen Sona, Wardha Collector; Dr Deepak Mhaisekar, Chandrapur Collector; Ram Joshi, Resident Deputy Collector, Gadchiroli; Dr Madhavi Khode, Bhandara Collector, and other officers also were present in the meeting during discussions on respective districts. 

Nagpur gets approval to annual
plan of Rs 250 cr: Bawankule
As against the Government ceiling of Rs 180.47 crore, Finance and Planning Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar has cleared annual plan of Nagpur district with an increase of Rs 70 crore. “The Finance and Planning Minister has given his nod to Nagpur district annual plan size of Rs 250 crore,” said Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Guardian Minister of Nagpur district.
According to Bawankule, District Planning Committee (DPC) for Nagpur had moved proposals with additional demands. The DPC had moved various proposals including financial provision for Government Medical College (GMC) development, modernisation of GMC, priority to construction of primary health centres and sub-centres, construction of buildings of anganwadi and Zilla Parishad schools, farm mechanisation, tourism development, protection wall around public utility lands, public library in big Gram Panchayats etc.
Dr Rajiv Potdar, President of Nagpur (Rural) unit of Bharatiya Janata Party, felicitated Bawankule at Ravi Bhavan for getting approved a handsome increase of Rs 70 crore in annual plan size.

Cong, NCP express displeasure
over ‘lowly’ plan size of Nagpur Expressing strong displeasure over allegedly ‘poor’ increase in annual plan size for Nagpur district, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders said that the plan size ‘approved’ should have been Rs 300 crore.
Former minister and Congress leader Dr Nitin Raut, former Minister of State and another senior Congress leader Rajendra Mulak, and former minister and senior NCP leader Anil Deshmukh said that BJP-Sena led State Government was heaping injustice upon Nagpur district in particular and Vidarbha region in general as was evident from ‘lowly’ plan size.
During Congress-led Government in State, Dr Raut stated in a release, annual plan size of Nagpur district increased from Rs 117 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 225 crore in 2013-14. However, BJP-led Government has now granted ‘lowly’ rise of Rs 25 crore, taking the plan size to Rs 250 crore only.
“This is sheer injustice considering that present-day Chief Minister and Finance Minister both are from Vidarbha,” stated Dr Raut and Anil Deshmukh. They pointed out that present-day Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had raised the demand of having separate planning committees for Nagpur (Rural) and Nagpur city. However, nothing has happened on that front, they added. 

(Filed on February 18, 2015)