MLAs flay step-motherly treatment to Vid, M’wada

MUMBAI: There was a marathon discussion on the Vijay Kelkar panel report on balanced regional development in the Maharashtra assembly on Wednesday. It continued till late evening as many members from opposition and treasury benches wanted to speak. The discussion would continue on Thursday.
After witnessing pandemonium on Tuesday, when opposition MLAs forced the house to be adjourned twice, the discussion on the important issue was started by leader of opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil on Wednesday.
Other members, including Malkapur MLA Chainsukh Sancheti flayed the previous governments for meting out step motherly treatment to Vidarbha and Marathwada regions, resulting in huge backlog. They accused the government of diverting irrigation funds meant for these regions to Western Maharashtra by flouting the governor’s directives.
NCP leader Jayant Patil read out points in the Nagpur Pact while endorsing Sancheti over the ill-treatment of Vidarbha. He attributed the backlog as the major reason for the demand of Vidarbha statehood, pointing out that it was first raised as early as 1905.
Quoting the Dandekar panel report, Vikhe Patil said it was over two decades since the panel had filed it, listing out various loopholes and recommendations to remove the huge backlog. However, nothing was done in this period that led to the backlog increasing to 80-85 years.
He called on members to see the recommendations in perspective of their respective regions, but think of how to bring back deprived sections of the society into the mainstream.
Reading out recommendations from the Kelkar report, the opposition leader said it called for totally revamping the regional development boards. “The chief minister should lead all such boards with guardian ministers as its members. It also suggested time bound programme.”
The report had also banned handing over tribal land to others, and assured jobs for them among its 146 recommendations. “However, all five-star properties on Mumbai-Nashik road were purchased from tribals. In Vidarbha, tribals had television sets but no power to see them. The ashram school in tribal areas are in horrible condition,” Vikhe Patil lamented.
He called for starting agro-based industries in Vidarbha and Marathwada to remove their backwardness.
Sancheti said various panels were constituted to calculate the backlog, including Dandekar and Indicators and Backlog Committees, but nothing moved beyond that.
“Vidarbha region remained backward due to wrong economic policies and bad governance. Even as Kelkar panel calculated the backlog at Rs 10,034 crore, in reality it’s Rs 35,546 crore. It is due to the government’s partial treatment that over 15,000 farmers have committed suicides in last few years.”
Citing Nagpur Pact of 1960, he said government had promised to pay more attention to Vidarbha and make it an education hub. “An Australian horticulturist had compared Vidarbha with California in the USA due to its fertile soil. But the government failed to make use of it. The region is famous for orange production, but nothing was done to promote the industry.”
Sancheti said Vidarbha should be made a textile hub to create employment opportunities in the region.