‘KBK still the poorest’

The New Indian Express, May 11, 2008

BALANGIR: Koraput, Balangir and Kalahandi (KBK) are the poorest districts in India, where 87 percent people and nearly 12 lakh families live below poverty line. KBK is still the most backward region even though funds for development programmes continue to flow to these districts over the years.

Deputy Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra said this quoting the 2007-08 CAG report. The CAG report clearly pointed out the erratic use of funds meant for agriculture, forest, irrigation, communication and drinking water facilities.

It specifically reported that as many as 1450 projects were either closed or remained incomplete. It said, ‘‘Participatory management was poor as contribution in respect of ‘pani panchayats and watershed development funds’ failed to take off creating apprehension about future maintenance of projects. Mainly, the Sampoorna Gramin Rojgar Yojana failed to generate employment days targeted under RLTAP, Indira Awas Yojana couldn’t provide dwelling to targeted group and short supply of rice and dal affected emergency feeding to the beneficiaries. And above all safe drinking water couldn’t be ensured in most of the habitations. More so, only 6 percent BPL families were covered under KBK schemes against the targeted 30 percent.

Mishra attributed this abysmally low economic progress to poor performance of developmental programmes undertaken in KBK. He said education is extremely dissatisfactory in KBK. ‘‘Proper education will clear bottlenecks in the way of development. State’s first priority should be education,’’Mishra said. He demanded that Central University should be established either in Balangir or any KBK district for socio-economic development.

Mishra warned that due to poor socio-economic growth and the failure of government to meet the development targets, Naxalite menace is growing. ‘‘To check the Naxal menace, a separate post of RDC should be created in KBK,’’ he added.