Smart Village scheme should not become mission to mint money, Uddhav Thackeray's Saamana

Mumbai, Aug 26 (IANS) The Shiv Sena(UBT) on Tuesday took a swipe at Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for his announcement that 10 villages in every taluka will be made smart and intelligent, saying that it should not become a 'new mission to collect money through contractors'.

The party's mouthpiece, 'Saamana', in its editorial, said, "This is because Fadnavis is smart and the corruption in his state is also smart."

The Thackeray camp in the Saamana editorial said the CM’s announcement needs to be carefully seen, especially when the much-touted Smart City Mission has completely flopped and its implementation is marked by corruption.

“When the Smart City Mission is in such a mess, CM Fadnavis has announced the Smart Village Scheme and made this a big deal. Now, isn't this Smart Village Scheme also an experiment to get work for their own contractor lobby and use a percentage of it in the elections of the same village? The same thing happened in the Ladki Bahin Yojana. Now, political games with government money will start in 3,500 villages. The ruling party has not been able to implement any scheme launched by the Central and Maharashtra governments," claimed the editorial.

CM Fadnavis presented his plan to make 10 villages from every taluka smart villages, modern and self-reliant, and he received applause from the people. Currently, 3500 villages will be developed as self-reliant, which means that employment will be available to the youth of these villages, and the youth will not migrate to the cities for jobs. Furthermore, the farmers of these 3500 villages will not commit suicide. “There will be no communal or religious disputes in these villages. The police and administration will not be corrupt. The roads will not be washed away in the rain. Should we assume that school buildings and health services will remain in good condition? Fadnavis' revolutionary step of the Smart Village Scheme has stirred up the public sentiments," the editorial said in a sarcastic tone.

"Prime Minister Modi has previously shown the carrots of many such smart schemes. Those carrots have never even been plucked. Prime Minister Modi launched the Smart City Scheme on June 25, 2015. In the 2015 Union Budget, two hundred and forty million US dollars or Rs 2020 crore, were allocated for the Smart City Mission. The mission aimed to improve the environment, strong infrastructure and quality of life in one hundred selected cities of the country. So far, despite spending Rs 1.64 lakh crore, if even one city under the Smart City Scheme has become self-sufficient and has strong infrastructure, then show it," challenged the Thackeray camp.

The Shiv Sena(UBT) said eight cities, including Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Nagpur, Nashik, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Solapur and Thane, were selected under the Smart City Mission. “Now, let us come to the details of how pathetic the condition of the cities in the 'Smart City' mission is even today. The planning of all these cities has collapsed. Roads are full of potholes. There are water and electricity shortages. People remain stuck in traffic for four to five hours. If the money from the Smart City Mission has been spent in these cities, can Chief Minister Fadnavis tell where it exactly went? Without an 'audit' of the affairs of the municipal corporations of these eight cities, their current commissioners and the then guardian ministers, the corruption in the Smart City Mission will not be exposed," remarked the editorial.

The Thackeray camp said so far, Rs 90,000 crore have been spent on the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan scheme and asked how clean India has become? "Apart from the one scheme to keep 80 crore people poor and permanently distribute 5-10 kg of foodgrains free of cost and make them slaves, PM Modi, CM Fadnavis and others have made a lot of mistakes in terms of implementation of these schemes,".

"The CM’s announcement of making 10 villages from every taluka smart comes when health facilities have not been available in many of these villages in the last ten years. Pregnant women have to be carried to the health centre in a sling. Delivery occurs on the way. Often, babies and infants lose their lives. Parents have to travel carrying the dead body of their child on their shoulders. An ambulance scam worth Rs 800 crore took place during Fadnavis's tenure. What action did our smart Chief Minister take on that scam?" asked the editorial.

The editorial said, “Where did these ambulances go? The Mumbai-Goa highway has been in a bad condition for years. There have been hundreds of protests at all levels regarding this. There have been criticisms, but the condition of this highway remains the same. The terrible plight of the Konkan people who go for Ganpati every year, the miles-long queues of their vehicles, is a constant picture. This is not only the situation in Konkan, but also in urban and rural areas of Maharashtra. So now, which smart lights will the government install in 3500 villages in the state?”

Thackeray camp has reiterated that the Smart Village Scheme should not become contractor-driven, paving the way for rampant corruption.

--IANS

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