JAIPUR: Governor Pratibha Patil on Tuesday put Rajasthan in the category of "rapidly progressing" States and said the important decisions taken by the Government here during the past two years had brought about an all-round progress. "Rajasthan is no more in the BIMARU category. It has started making an identity even at international levels," Ms.Patil said addressing the fifth session of the 12th Assembly, which began here.

Delivering the 52-page address -- which took her about 100 minutes -- with some strain, Ms.Patil said efficient fiscal management, water conservation campaigns, integrated rural development, education campaigns and time bound action plan in welfare programmes resulted in all round progress. The members gave a patient listening to the address and expect for once there was no interruption during the long speech.

Effective planning led to more avenues in employment while crop insurance eliminated the uncertainties of farming. Investors were bringing new projects to the State and traders were happy with the solid economic conditions. Tourism sector had been steadily growing and all sections of society were getting the benefits of the progress, Ms.Patil noted.

The address said since February 2004, the State had not availed any overdraft and instead, its account with the Reserve Bank of India had been in surplus. The effective fiscal management helped to bring down the revenue deficit, which stood at 31 per cent in 2002-03 to 12 per cent in 2004-05. The State Government also received incentives of Rs.59.77 crores and Rs.60.62 crores in 2003-04 and 2004-05 respectively for effective improvement in revenue deficit under the 11th Finance Commission's Fiscal Reform Facility. Ms.Patil said a multi-purpose scheme, "Karishma", was launched in December 2005 with an idea to provide inter-connectivity between the panchayati raj department and the institutions. In the first phase of the scheme all the 32 zila parishads, 237 panchayat samitis and 1100-gram panchayats would be connected through computers to provide better service to the people in the rural areas. Expansive software was under preparation for the scheme, she said. Ms.Patil said Rajasthan was expecting to receive waters of the Narmada river by June 2006 and preparations were afoot for its proper utilization.

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