Healthy budgetary allocation must for infrastructure, health, education: SC

New Delhi: Supreme Court on Thursday underlined the importance of healthy budgetary allocation by states for improving infrastructure, health and education and said mindless privatisation of these key sectors linked to human resource development would spell disaster.

“It is high time for states to dedicate a part of their budget for development of infrastructure, health and education sectors. Otherwise, all these would be in private hands and commercially exploited. It will lead to the rich getting better amenities and the poor nothing,” a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh said.

The SC was also against selling state assets to fund development projects. “Selling assets to generate funds is not a solution. The political executive has a better understanding of the issues than us. So, they must take policy decisions in this regard,” the bench said. The court was hearing a dispute relating to 38 acres of prime land situated between Hyderabad and Secunderabad, which was purchased in 1964 by Kalyan Nagar Cooperative Society for construction of houses for its members. However, the land came to be encroached, and the society could never take possession of it.

After hearing additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati for the Telangana govt, senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy for the civic body and senior advocate Guru Krishna Kumar for the society, the bench found that most of the encroachers were slum-dwellers who had moved out after transferring their land to other people who had now built multi-storied houses there.

The SC laid out the options to be weighed by the state: compensation to be paid by the authorities to society members at present market rate and recovery of the amount from the encroachers as regularisation and development fee; find alternative parcels of land for allotment to the society and to the encroachers and use the vacated land for commercial use or other projects that would get investment for the state.

“Decision on this issue will require detailed deliberations on the suggested options. The state could also think of any better option,” the bench said.