Book of Integration Council New - Ministry of Home Affairs

In keeping with the national objectives of economic growth with social
justice, the Government of Gujarat has taken a number of initiatives over the
past several years to ensure that the benefits of development are spread as
evenly as possible among the different regions and groups in the State.
These initiatives have had a measure of success, but certain regions of the
State still remain relatively backward.
The Government of Gujarat therefore appointed the Cowlagi Committee in
October 2004 to go into the issues of balanced economic growth within the
State. Based on 44 indicators including Human Development and infrastructure
related parameters this committee identified 30 most backward Talukas. Special
interventions for development of these Talukas have been initiated.
The 11 th Plan document has lauded the steps taken by Government of
Gujarat for its unique strategy to accelerate the development of 30 relatively
backward talukas wherein senior officers of the rank of Secretary and above
have been asked to voluntarily adopt one taluka each to prepare and implement
development plan for these talukas in a time bound manner.
However, Eleventh Plan has not made any recommendation to financially
assist State Government's initiatives in addressing the problem of regional
imbalance within the State.
Under the hill area development programme, hilly districts of Assam, West
Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Goa have been included.
Inspite of Gujarat having a large hilly region in the Aravali and Sahayadri ranges
covering as many as nine districts having substantial tribal population, not a
single district or taluka of Gujarat has been taken up under this programme.
Maintaining ecological balance and preservation as well as creation of
sustainable livelihood opportunity is a problem hilly region of the country share
with the desert regions of western India. The Great Rann of Kutch and the Little
Rann of Kutch face major hardships on account of harshness of the terrain and
lack of natural resources. In spite of repeated requestes made by Gujarat, Central
Government has failed to appreciate the issues of the desert regions which need
special incentive packages to address the problems of poor infrastructure and
lack of economic activities aimed at creation of sustainable livelihood
opportunities.
I would request the Honorable Prime Minister to intervene in this matter as
this would also be useful from the strategic point of view since most of the
desert regions in the country have international border.
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