A group of activists and people’s representatives from Western Maharashtra has demanded that the Kelkar committee should consider taluka as the unit to assess development, instead of district, and should consider the geographical and environmental aspects of the regions, while making suggestions.
The government has appointed an 11-member committee for recommendations on balanced regional development. The committee will be headed by well-known economist, Vijay Kelkar, who played a major role in the country’s economic reforms.
The Kelkar Committee will focus on backlog estimation and recommend approaches to development so that all regions are brought to the same level of development.
The Urvarit Maharashtra Anyay Nirmulan Parishad, formed to create awareness about the committee in western Maharashtra, had organised a meeting of farmers and people’s representatives in the city recently.
Various issues related to regional development were to be discussed at the meeting. However, the meeting did not receive a good response.
Citing ignorance and lack of awareness as reasons for the poor response, activist and convenor Bharat Patankar said that the parishad would strive to educate the people about the committee so that they can have a say in the committee’s report.
MLAs Ramraje Nimbalkar, Prabhakar Gharge, Deepak Chavan and Dilip Yelgaonkar were present for the discussion.
Urging the committee to consider taluka as unit to assess development, Patankar said that many talukas in several districts remained backward for decades, as the earlier committees took into consideration the overall development of the districts and not the talukas.
He suggested that equitable water distribution, which is an important indicator of development, required a thorough study of the regions.
The committee should consider geographical and environmental aspects of the regions, he said.
Patankar stressed on need to revise the indicators on the basis of present context. “If the committee is ready to hold a discussion, we can produce the documents and elaborate on our suggestions,” he said.
The migrations for work from one region to another also need to be considered by the committee. He also demanded that public hearings be held by the committee to consider the public opinion. Awareness on the issue will be created among the people by the Urvarit Maharashtra Anyay Nirmulan Parishad.
Nimbalkar assured support to the parishad and said he would raise the concerns of western Maharashtra on his level and urge MLAs to come together on the issue.
