Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget announcements for 2014-15 seemed to have drawn on Gujarat’s development experience. Announcements such as power for all in the rural areas, Rurban development, safety for the girl child and education and tribal welfare were seen to have their roots in the Gujarat model — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s laboratory of development.
Sample this: Finance Minister Jaitley allocated Rs 500 crore for the ‘Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana’ of feeder separation to provide 24x7 uninterrupted power supply to all homes in villages. Besides augmenting power supply to the rural areas, the scheme would strengthen sub-transmission and distribution systems.
In Gujarat, a similar Jyoti Gram Yojana (JGY) — launched in 2003 is responsible for revolutionising power distribution in the State. Under the JGY, a separate 11kV electric feeder for domestic and commercial use was set up with a parallel rural distribution network of 78,454 km of new lines and 2,257 nos of JGY feeders. This helped the State achieve round-the-clock 3-phase power supply in its 18,000 villages and 9,700 hamlets.
Further, recognising Gujarat’s success in rural-urban ‘Rurban’ development, Jaitley announced the Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission to deliver integrated project-based infrastructure for the rural areas. This will encourage Public Private Partnership (PPP) on the lines of the Gujarat model.
On the social front too, some of the schemes had Gujarat’s flavour in it. Jaitley announced Rs 100-crore for the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana, which will be a focused scheme helping to generate awareness and improve efficiency of delivery of women welfare services.
Gujarat did wonders under its decade-old save the girl child initiative named Beti Bachao. Resultantly, the State’s sex ratio improved from 883 per 1,000 boys in 2001 to 886 in 2011. Then the State Government also floated the Kanya Kelavni Nidhi and the Vidya Lakshmi Bonds to support and encourage education for the girl child. The results of this effort showed that the female literacy rate jumped by 13 per cent during the period to 70.73 per cent.
Commenting on this, Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani tweeted, ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ would not only help improve the adverse sex ratio but also ensure that girls are educated. @PMOIndia.”
Also, Jaitley’s VanBandhu Kalyan Yojana is a replica of Gujarat’s scheme with same name. The Finance Minister has allocated Rs 100 crore for the welfare of tribals under the scheme.