Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget 2014-15 had shades of Modi’s Gujarat on it. Announcements such as power to all in rural areas, Rurban (rural-urban) development, girl child safety and education, and tribal welfare have their roots in the Gujarat model — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s laboratory of development.

 Sample this: Finance minister Jaitley allocated ₹500 crore for 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 will also strengthen sub-transmission and distribution systems.

Power to villages

 In Gujarat, the Jyoti Gram Yojana (JGY) launched in 2003 is responsible for revolutionising the 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. This helped the State achieve round-the-clock 3-phase power supply to its 18,000 villages and 9,700 hamlets.

 Further, recognising Gujarat’s success in rural-urban ‘Rurban’ development, Jaitley announced Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission to deliver integrated project-based infrastructure for the rural areas. This will encourage Public Private Partnership (PPP) model similar to what is present in Gujarat.

For children

 On the social front too, some of the schemes had Gujarat’s flavour in it. For the girl child safety and education, Jaitley announced ₹100-crore 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 girl child initiative named Beti Bachao . The State’s sex ratio improved from 883 per 1000 boys in 2001 to 886 in 2011. The Kanya Kelavni Nidhi and Vidya Lakshmi Bonds to support and encourage girl child education helped boost literacy rates.  Also, Jaitley’s VanBandhu Kalyan Yojana is a replica of Gujarat’ s scheme with same name. The Minister has allocated ₹100 crore for the welfare of the tribal under the scheme.  

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