The Hindu : Two delegations and a cause

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 30, 2002

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Two delegations and a cause

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI April 28. When some 150 MLAs from all parties, ruling and Opposition from Marathwada, Konkan and Vidarbha, called on the Maharashtra Governor, P. C. Alexander, recently to thank him for his steps to ensure equity in allocations for development of their backward regions and liquidating the backlog, especially in irrigation by 2004, they were led by the former Chief Minister, S. B. Chavan. The irony is that Mr. Chavan as a Chief Minister had opposed this discretionary power to the Governor since it would bypass the legislative machinery's right to scrutinise and leave it to be satisfied with a mere discussion of the Governor's order.

Mr. Chavan has now apparently reconciled himself to an overriding role for the Governor in ensuring equity and removal of backlog. Mr. Chavan had then thought that the three statutory development boards set up in 1994 would be needless as long as the political machinery was committed to eliminating the backlog which were put at Rs. 3,186 crores in 1984 by the V. N. Dandekar panel.

Earlier a similar delegation, comprising all-party legislators from western Maharashtra, met the Governor. The earlier delegation objected to de-emphasising investment in irrigation in the Krishna Valley region on new projects without giving up on-going works. These two delegations brought to the forefront what was sub-surface all along: regional suspicion and animosity. It has now become "them vs. us'' with its grave political implications of sharpened sub-regionalism.

What provoked the visit of the western Maharashtra delegation? The Governor had ordered that the liquidation of the backlog, which has since 1984 been growing, especially in the irrigation sector, be funded in a time-bound manner by determining allocation on the basis of backlog, population and net sown area. The earlier formula had not neutralised the backlog, according to the Government itself. And if funds are raised for projects by bonds from the market, these too should be similarly distributed. Most of the new projects are funded by borrowings through bonds now.

The fear of western Maharashtra is that since most money raised is for its Krishna Valley projects, the Governor's fiat would slow down their own development. Ironically, the Konkan region, which has been demanding a separate statutory board for itself, though clubbed with the "rest of Maharashtra'' excluding Marathwada and Vidarbha, has joined the non-western Maharashtra regions in clamour for equity. The contention is that this region stands neglected vis-à-vis western Maharashtra. Konkan, however, has minimal scope among all regions for irrigation, being a hilly terrain on the coast.

Significantly, the Governor has once again underscored the levels of backlog. His recent order set the cat among the pigeons in western Maharashtra, which regardless of other region's representation in the power structure, even if Chief Ministers hailed from other regions, has been dominating the decision-making process and to its own benefit.

If the backlog of Vidarbha was 39.12 per cent of the States total in 1984, it grew to 47.60 per cent in a decade and in 2000, stood at 48.26 per cent.

Marathwada's share in backlog grew from 23.56 per cent to 29.77 per cent and again to 29.62 per cent in the same period. Much more than the 1984 backlog has been spent but due to inflation, the backlogs have grown.

As the Governor noted in his recent order setting a time-frame and the pace of allocations, the "inequitable allocations under the non-backlog funds which constitute over 90 per cent of the total annual plan has caused distortions in the allocations'' between Vidarbha and Marathwada on the one hand and western Maharashtra on the other, "resulting in gross inequity.''

Only after the Governor took the issue in hand and funds were provided towards backlog elimination, did the State's machinery become conscious towards its duty to the regions and their clamour for equity.

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