The glitter of a first anniversary celebration may have been missing from the ceremony to release the UPA government’s Report to the People, but the 70-page report didn’t harp on according the government full marks for trying to implement its Aam Aadmi agenda. Hidden in the long report however, is the fact that the government has settled some matters of controversy as well.
For example, on Naxal terror the Centre’s position has been made clear?that of supplementing the effort of state governments. Quite clearly, an effort to maintain distance between the failure to tackle Naxals and the Centre’s own record has been put in.
On the ministries handled by allies, like the railway ministry?which appears out of the control of the Prime Minister and the discipline of the Cabinet, only a one-line mention was made of the dedicated freight corridors to be set up by the railways, work on which has been on a halt as minister Mamata Banerjee is busy protecting her political turf in Bengal.
Topping the list of achievements of the government, however, was the passing of the Right to Education Act, guaranteeing free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of 6-14. Never mind the fact that most state governments have strenuous objections to the Act and a fund deficit of nearly Rs 7,000 crore has been pointed out by a parliamentary committee which examined the Act.
Food security was the next big-ticket social security programme, along with the inclusion programme which the UPA government was supposed to introduce in the first year of governance. Progress here has been tardy, although the report card assures the people that the draft Bill is ?almost ready? and will be thrown open for discussion soon. Significantly, the clearing of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha, has also been named as one of the main achievements of the government in promoting inclusive growth.
Managing the drought of 2008 has also been given a prominent place among the achievements of the government. ?The UPA government approved assistance amounting to Rs 4,806 crore from the National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF) to help mitigate the effects of the drought,? said the report. As expected, the Unique Identification Authority also figured in the report, which included, suprisingly, a large section devoted to science and technology. One section titled ?New Horizons? lists all the innovative, out-of-the-box thinking of the government, including a novel treatment for ayurvedic treatment for tuberculosis.
Suprisingly, infrastructure, which was supposed to be a priority area for the Prime Minister comes at the end of the exhaustive report. While metro and mass rapid transportation has been mentioned, the avowed aim of providing 20 kilometres of road per day to the country is not mentioned.
