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Centre to consider Puducherry’s plea

PUDUCHERRY: The Centre has agreed to consider the Puducherry government’s plea to bring Karaikal district under the purview of the Backward Regions Grant Fund as and when the allocation scope is expanded.

Responding to the letters written by Chief Minister N. Rangasamy on November 14 and 16, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia said: “As per the criteria adopted for identifying districts, no districts from Puducherry could qualify under the fund.” In his December 4 reply, Mr. Ahluwalia said: “If the scope of the fund was expanded in future, the case of Karaikal would be considered for inclusion under the programme.” In his letter, the Chief Minister had also demanded that Karaikal district be brought under the Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana. Mr. Ahluwalia said the Yojana was replaced with the Backward Regions Grant Fund, and Karaikal did not meet any of the criteria. Even while addressing the 54th National Development Council meeting on December 19, the Chief Minister reiterated the demand that Karaikal be treated as a backward district. Mr. Rangasamy sought additional Central Government assistance, from the Backward Regions Grant Fund, for infrastructure development in the Karaikal region.

Official sources told The Hindu that though it might be argued that human development indices did not support the plea, the Karaikal region had the highest number of rural pockets. The region had a good record in maintaining literacy, which, according to 2001 survey, was 81.9 per cent against the Union Terriotory’s average of 81. 24. In the health sector, for a population of 1.24 lakhs, the region had one general hospital, 11 primary health centres and one community health centre, a senior official said.

The area of concern, the sources said, was the shrinking farm activity because of the successive crop failure: the area under cultivation had come down from 12,000 hectares to 6,000 hectares during the last ten years. Besides agriculture, the industrial scenario had not “shown any sign of recovery,” with around 600 acres acquired for setting up industrial units at Pollagam around six years ago remaining unused. A section of the planners suggested that the government promote alternative farming to support farmhands.

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