As Narendra Modi gears up to take charge as Prime Minister on Monday, several key departments are getting their presentations in place to apprise the new Government of the roadblocks and forward plans for their respective Ministries.
The officials of the Union Rural Development Ministry will apprise the new Prime Minister of the reasons for poor performance of UPA’s key rural flagship schemes including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Indira Awas Yojna (IAY) and Pradhanmantri Gramin Sadak Yojna (PMGSY). The PM will also be apprised about newly framed legislation on land acquisition.
Army chief General Bikram Singh has also deferred his visit to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan to be present for the presentation. He was scheduled to visit these countries from May 26 to 28. “The new PM is likely to review Defence preparedness of the three Armed Forces and pace of modernisation after assuming office,” said a source in the Ministry.
The Defence Ministry’s list of issues includes paucity of critical weapon systems affecting war fighting capabilities of the armed forces.“The delayed acquisition of 126 Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), 197 light helicopters, shortage of ammunition and much-delayed induction of long range artillery guns and howitzers for the Army are poignant issues which need to be raised,” said a source.
In fact, the Army is yet to procure a new artillery gun since 1986 after Bofors gun controversy and urgently needs more than 1,500 guns of difference calibers for the Mountain Strike Corps to meet any threat from China. The UPA Government gave the go-ahead for raising this Corps in July last year and the process has now started to recruit more than 40,000 troops besides procuring specialised weapons for fighting a war in the mountains.
Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways is almost ready with its long wish-list for the road sector, which has been in severe crisis for the last couple of years. “The highways Ministry has been in a bad financial situation due to poor response from the markets. We have not even been able to meet our road construction targets for the last two years. So our first aim will be to wean the sector out its current mess,” said an official from the Ministry.
“The new Government should allow us a greater leeway to choose between Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) modes while awarding projects instead of the mandatory PPP option, which has led to massive delays in two dozen highway projects resulting in a slow down of the sector,” he said.
In the current situation, the private sector participation has waned drastically, causing delays in awarding projects. With the new Government, the officials are hopeful of asking for an overall increase in public-funded projects as well as easing of the mandatory environmental clearances processes, which are lengthy and arduous.
Among other demands is a three times increase in their budgetary allocation to help them acquire land for road construction, which is expected to have undergone a three-fold increase after the introduction of the land Acquisition Act.Even the babus in the Environment Ministry are burning midnight oil to prepare the presentation. Top most on their agenda is the need to streamline clearances. “When the Ministry was under Jayanthi Natarajan, the files gathered dust for months and soon after her successor Dr. Verappa Moily took over, the files started moving and but lag remains,” said the sources.
According to them, the new Government must expedite land acquisition and environment clearances by setting up a joint task force comprising of ministries of environment, finance, administrative along with the states which can take decisions with a specific time-frame, cutting delays. As on date 4678 projects are held up in various stages of forest clearance. About 450 projects from the various sectors of coal, industries, infrastructure, mining etc. are still awaiting Environmental clearance
A yet another area of concern is the utilisation of the huge corpus of CAMPA funds to the tune of Rs11,000 crore. It was earlier advised by the Ministry that the fund can be used to protect wildlife and its habitat within and outside protected areas but is awaiting clearance.The National Board for Wildlife (NBWl), which decides on green clearances for commercial projects falling within 10km of protected areas, has not been functioning for eight months, leaving several projects in limbo.
Sources in the Union Health Ministry said a detailed presentation has been prepared on progress of various health schemes such as National Rural Health Mission, tuberculosis programmes and mental health schemes which have failed to deliver results as desired or are moving at the snail pace. High maternal and infant mortality rate continue to remain a major health concern.
Other issues to be highlighted will be increasing out of pocket expenditure of households in rural India, rising burden of non-communicable diseases, poor research in health arena. Medical education, mental health programmes, proposed National Urban Health Mission, poor infrastructure and health resources in the health sector will also feature in the presentation.