An announcement and a report

var addthis_product = 'wpp-254';The Rs 8000 crore budget announcement and the

Rangarajan Panel report on J&K
“The government’s special support to Jammu and Kashmir is anchored in the Rs.28,000 crore Prime
Minister’s Reconstruction Plan. In addition, for the current year, about Rs.8,000 crore has been
provided for the state’s development needs,” Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in his budget
speech.
Although an impression is being created that an additional Rs 8,000 crore has been given to Jammu
& Kashmir, there is still no clarity about the details of this allocation. Is it over and above the plan
outlays for the state? Or, as what seems most likely, is it just a sum-total of outlays already
budgeted for J&K under various Centrally Sponsored Schemes for development?
There is no point of such announcements in the budget unless complete details are also
disseminated immediately. It is precisely this kind of subterfuge by Delhi that has historically led to
cynicism on all sides: Kashmiris believe that the Union Government is insincere and dishonest in its
commitment towards Kashmir, while many in India assume that Kashmir is being given a special
treatment by being provided with an additional Rs 8,000 crore.
Before making such duplicitous announcements, Union Government would be well advised to come
out with a detailed status-report on the much-touted Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan. A fair
portion of Rs 1,200 crore allocated for 2010-11 remains unspent (Status Report as on 31 January
2011 pdf) and the deadline for the PMRP continues to be extended every year beyond its original
proposed date of 2008.
Meanwhile, the panel headed by C Rangarajan has submitted its latest report to “formulate a jobs
plan” and increase “employability in the state” of J&K. It recommends a five-year skill
development plan entailing an annual expenditure of Rs 761 crore. Among its other
recommendations are a Rs 1,200 crore scheme for increasing access to education, Rs 500 crore
initiative for professional training of 40,000 educated youths and Rs 257 crore project for skill
development of up to one lakh youth, besides programmes for revising agriculture, textile and
handicrafts.
The Prime Minister has commented favourably on the proposals contained in the report. The Chief
Minister also hopes that they will be implemented soon. But Mr Rangarajan has eearlier submitted
two reports about reviving the economy of J&K to the same prime minister, which have been
accepted but never implemented.
Dr Rangarajan was the head of an 11-member task force to frame a long-term plan for the integrated
social and economic development of J&K, announced on March 29, 2005. It had a large mandate of
identifying sources of finance – locally, nationally and globally – to fund the development of the
state and the projects it suggests. After eight meetings, Dr Rangarajan’s panel submitted a detailed
report (summary pdf) to the Prime Minister in November 2006. The report suggested a series of
projects that were worth around Rs 8000 crore. Apart from a number of quick yielding projects
(QYP), the panel suggested a Rs 200 crore asset reconstruction company (ARC), Rs 200 crore
investment in ‘image enhancement on this side of the LoC’, a Rs 200 crore satellite business city on
outskirts of Srinagar, and an investment of Rs 200 crore in a special industrial zone (SIZ) on SEZ
pattern.
Dr Rangarajan was in the middle of this assignment when, in May 2006, he was tasked to head one
of the five Working Groups set up after the Prime Minister’s Round Table Conference on J&K. The
working group on the economic development was tasked to evolve a strategy that would ensure:
balanced economic development and employment generation; and balanced regional and sub-
regional development within J&K. Dr Rangarajan repackaged his earlier report as the Working
Group Report (pdf here) and submitted it to the Third Round Table Conference on April 24, 2007 in
Delhi. This time he suggested various projects worth Rs 7947 crore but did not change the focus of
his prescription. This time he wanted Rs 1750 crore for rural roads besides reiterating his
suggestions over Dulhasti power project, SIZ and ARC. It was believed that the report would
eventually take the shape of PM’s Reconstruction Plan-II but nothing of that kind has happened so
far.
When all his earlier recommendations continue to gather dust, little has changed now to suggest a
different fate for Dr Rangarajan’s latest report. It is perhaps for these times that Churchill said:
“Men occasionally stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if
nothing had happened.”
http://pragmatic.nationalinterest.in/2011/03/05/an-announcement-and-a-report/