Panel highlights inter-district disparities

tumkur: the high-powered committee headed by noted economist dr d.m. nanjundappa studying regional imbalances has suggested that the state''s annual plans should reintroduce objectives to reduce the gulf between various districts of karnataka. the committee has pointed out that reducing inter-district disparities has been left out as one of the major objectives in the state''s plans after 1980-81."it is, therefore, necessary to reintroduce measures to bridge this gap." even after a year of its submission to the government, the first report of the nanjundappa committee has not yet been discussed in any fora. the deliberations of the high-powered committee on the redressal of regional imbalances in karnataka were started by chief minister s.m. krishna on december 22, 2000. an interim report was submitted for consideration which revealed a startling backwardness of the constituencies held by the present chief minister as also his predecessors. giving an example of the disparity, the committee has said the gap between the most developed dakshina kannada and the least developed gulbarga was of the order of nearly 170 points in 1960-61. by 1976-77, bangalore secured the top-most place and gulbarga, though registered a higher progress, continued to be the least developed district. but the gap between the two was reduced to 139.6 points in 1970-71. there was a clear indication to show that the planned efforts have resulted in moving towards the objective of achieving regional balance. in its eagerness to accord priority to power and irrigation sectors, the karnataka government has inadvertently affected the flow of resources to the districts under the panchayat raj system. so much so, the infrastructure has suffered a serious setback. "the objective of reducing regional imbalances did not find its rightful place in the policy framework," the report said. districts like bangalore rural, chitradurga, kolar, shimoga, tumkur, uttara kannada, bidar, gulbarga, chikmagalur, hassan, madikeri, mandya and chamarajanagar have received a higher proportion of the allocation compared to their population. other districts like davanagere, belgaum, dharwad, dakshina kannada and mysore have received resources less than their population. as against the state average per capita income of rs 13,621, it''s rs 7,861 in bidar, rs 8,688 in raichur, rs 9,011 in tumkur and rs 9,516 in gulbarga at the 1997-98 prices. making a strong case for setting up of high court bench and relocating southwestern railway zonal headquarters in hubli-dharwad, the committee has appreciated the recent shifting of headquarters of karnataka neeravari nigam from bangalore to hubli-dharwad. the committee has suggested relocating state public enterprises like karnataka handicrafts development corporation, karanataka agro industries development corporation, karnataka handloom development corporation, karnataka fisheries development corporation, karnataka cashew development corporation and hatti gold mines to the districts in north karnataka. "there is no justification for locating the headquarters of state government enterprises in bangalore whereas their field activity lies in a different district or area."