The Hindu : Khurana lists Govt.'s priorities

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 20, 2004

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Khurana lists Govt.'s priorities

By Our Staff Correspondent

JAIPUR, JAN. 19 . The Rajasthan Governor, Madan Lal Khurana, today spelt out the priorities and vision of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government in his address to the maiden session of the new Assembly and identified infrastructure, law and order, human resource development, e-governance and creation of employment opportunities as the key areas.

"The recent change of Government was like stepping from darkness into light. The people of Rajasthan, in a democratic manner, handed over the reins of the State to the new Government at Janpath,'' Mr. Khurana said referring to the first-ever public ceremony at Janpath in front of the towering Assembly building here on December 8 last, when Vasundhara Raje was sworn in as the Chief Minister.

The Governor's hour-long address found fault with the policies of the previous Congress-led Government and blamed it for huge financial liabilities on the State, low expenditure on development works, non-availability of power, "missing links'' of roads and the deteriorating law and order situation. "Rajasthan was counted among the States with the highest crime rate during the previous regime. This has caused immense damage to the self-respect of the State,'' Mr. Khurana observed while affirming that the law and order situation would be improved and the police force modernised during the coming years.

Mr. Khurana made a special reference to the BJP-led Government's 100-day action plans for various departments and pointed out that they were in line with the Prime Minister's vision for ensuring that the 21st century belonged to India. He said the public welfare policies would be implemented in the State in a time-bound manner.

Among the initial positive steps of the new Government were lifting the ban on recruitment to Government services, power supply for eight hours for the rabi crops, introduction of the crop insurance scheme and restoration of facilities for Government employees withdrawn by the previous Government. Mr. Khurana said the "power to people'' concept would be implemented with the decentralisation of power.

The Governor said the Annual Plan size for the current financial year had been increased from Rs. 4,258 crores to Rs. 5,504 crores and the biggest chunk of 30.61 per cent would go to the social and community services. He said the State had suffered due to low expenditure during the Ninth Plan and the liabilities at Rs. 24,000 crores till 1998-99 had now increased to Rs. 52,000 crores.

While e-governance would be implemented in the right earnest at all levels, the administration would be made more transparent, accountable and sensitive. The power availability will be increased by an additional generation of 1,600 MW during the next five years and the work on three major irrigation projects would be completed. Under the project for interlinking of rivers, additional water will be supplied to Rana Pratap Sagar.

Mr. Khurana said the 2,715-km-long "missing links'' of roads would be constructed during 2004-05 and the Centre would invest Rs. 3,091 crores on the golden quadrangle project in the State.

As part of the urban development project, Jaipur will be given a new look and made a high-tech city in the next five years with its integrated development.

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Khurana lists Govt.'s priorities