Independent Initiatives

Indian Railways is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. A befitting way to pay tribute to thisgreat institution, which has contributed immensely to India’s economic progress and national integration, isto put it on a path of fast-track growth.

The Government is drawing up an important non-budgetary investment initiative for thedevelopment of Indian Railways, to be called the National Rail Vikas Yojana.

Under this, all the capacity bottlenecks in the critical sections of the railway networkwill be removed at an investment of Rs. 15,000 crore over the next five years. These projects would include

Strengthening of the Golden Quadrilateral to enable Railways to run more long-distancemail/express trains and freight trains at a higher speed of 100 kmph, at a cost of Rs. 8,000 crore;

Strengthening of rail connectivity to ports and development of multimodal corridors tohinterland, at a cost of Rs. 3,000 crore;

Construction of four mega bridges — two over the River Ganga, one over River Brahmaputra,and one over the River Kosi — at a cost of Rs. 3,500 crore;

Accelerated completion of last mile and other important projects, at a cost of Rs. 763crore.

Today, there are sanctioned projects worth Rs. 40,000 crores, which have been languishingfor a long time. At the present rate of allocation, it will take more than 25 years to complete them.

The Government has decided to draw up a plan to complete all the viable Sanctioned RailwayProjects within the next 10 years.

Indian Railways will launch "Operation Cleanliness" to significantly improve the standards of sanitation at railway stations, on platforms and inside railwaycompartments.

2: Work on the Rs. 3,564-crore project for constructing the Udhampur to Baramulla railwayline in Jammu & Kashmir will be given on a single-tender basis to IRCON and Konkan Railway CorporationLimited, which have an excellent track record of undertaking construction of railway projects in difficultterrain. As announced by the Prime Minister, during his recent visit to Srinagar, the first train would rollinto Kashmir Valley before August 15, 2007.

3: In pursuance of the Prime Minister’s announcement on Kargil Vijay Diwas last year, theMinistry of Defence has finalized a scheme for medical care for ex-servicemen and their dependants. It will belaunched within three months. The Ministry will take several new initiatives to strengthen national security,of which the important ones are:

Production and induction of AGNI class of missiles into the Army.

Production and induction of Brahmos, the supersonic missile capable of launch from multipleplatforms, into the Services.

Supply of two LM-2500 Engines for Naval Frigates to the Indian Navy.

Delivery of 11 Advanced Light Helicopters to the Armed Forces.

Rolling out of T-90 tanks assembled from kits from Russia.

4: The Ministry of Home Affairs will prepare a plan to issue multi-purposemachine-readable Identity Cards to all citizens. For this, a pilot project will be launched in October to cover select districts in eight States. This pilotproject will be completed within a year. These identity cards will also facilitate the implementation ofe-governance initiatives.

5: Social security is a matter of serious concern for most of the citizens. The fall in theinterest rates on deposits, coupled with the difficulties faced by some of the financial institutions, havecaused worry to the saving community.

The Government soon proposes to introduce a comprehensive and participative scheme ofsocial security, which will seek to address the Life-Time Concerns of the poor and the middle-class — such as income-enhancing education; provision for the needs of the girl child; emergency health careneeds; economic security in old age; and protection to families in the event of untimely deaths ofbreadwinners.

Alleviation of hunger among the most vulnerable sections of the society — such as oldpeople, widows and disabled persons without family or societal support — will be an important component ofthe initiative on Life-Time Concerns. Accordingly, extending the scope of the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, andtaking advantage of the surplus stock of foodgrains, the Government will operationalise a major food-basedsocial security for the destitute.

6: So far, nearly two and a half crore Kisan Credit Cards have been issued. Efforts will be made to cover the entire population of eligible farmers under this schemein the next two years.

Public sector general insurance companies will promote a new initiative to expand andfurther improve the provision of crop insuranceneeds of our kisans.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution will set up a NationalCommodities Exchange to streamline commodity futures trading in the country.

7: The Ministry of Power, guided by the slogan "Power for All" by 2012, will launch a programme for accelerated completion of the electrification of all villages in the country by2007, and all households in the next ten years, relying significantly on local renewable energy resources anddecentralized technologies. For this, it will set up a Rural Electricity Supply Technology (REST) Mission. TheAccelerated Power Development & Reforms Programme (APDRP) would intensify the Ministry’s cooperativeinteraction with State Governments to restore the commercial health of SEBs/Utilities.

8: Thanks to the initiatives taken by the Ministry of Communications and InformationTechnology, 130 lakh new telephone lines will be added in the coming year. Of these, 75 lakh will be mobile telephones. This is expected to take India’steledensity from 4.38 to 5.61 – the highest ever yearly increase since Independence.

The Ministry will implement a comprehensive programme to accelerate e-Governance at all levels of the government to improve efficiency, transparency and accountability at thegovernment-citizen interface. E-Bill Post and internet-based E-Post Service network will be expanded to cover all districts in the coming year.

The establishment of Media Lab Asia, a joint collaboration between the Department of IT and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, hasbeen an important initiative to address the challenge of Digital Divide in India and other developingcountries. It would pursue high-end research in four areas germane to the needs of rural India: "WorldComputer" (low-cost computing devices); "Bits for All" (bringing low-cost connectivity to thedoorstep of rural masses; "Tools for Tomorrow" (creation of low-cost learning tools to bring out thespirit of innovation among the rural youth); and "Digital Village" (where the above three researchprogrammes would be demonstrated for palpable impact). Media Lab Asia has been designated as an Asian RegionalHub of the United Nations ICT Task Force for coordinating activities of academia and the private sector in thearea of IT for the Masses.

9: Ministry of Petroleum, together with other concerned ministries, will take steps touniversalize blending, with petrol and diesel, of ethanol from various feedstocks, including sugar factories. It will also promote use of other bio-fuels. Sale ofgasohol will become mandatory in nine States and four Union Territories from January 1, 2003.

10: Ministry of Textiles will earmark Rs. 100 crore for a one-time special rebate on handloom fabrics to kickstart this employment-intensive industry and revive its production cycle. An additional Rs.125 crore will be spent for skill upgradation of one lakh handloom weavers. The Government will start aspecial contributory insurance scheme for one million weavers and artisans, which will combine the Jan ShreeBima Yojana with group insurance.

11: The Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation is working on earlyintroduction of a Model Municipal Law to facilitate participation of the private sector in urban infrastructure projects, especially in watersupply and sanitation. The ministry will operationalise "City Challenge Fund" this year to promote urban sector reforms, with a special focus on making the urban local bodies viable.

The Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (VAMBAY), which was launched last year, has become highly popular in a short time. The scheme will supportconstruction of over one lakh slum houses in the current year, with an allocation of Rs. 256 crore. The scopeof construction of community toilets in slum areas, under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, will be further expanded.

12: The Ministry of Human Resource Development will formulate a National Plan of Actionfor Children, which will contain the developmental targets relating to India’s children in the next decade. ANational Charter for Children will be adopted in the coming year. The National Nutrition Mission will be fully operationalised during the current year. The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) willbe universalized in all the 5,652 blocks in the country.

13: The Government will amalgamate all the different schemes, presently being run byMinistry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Urban Developmentand Poverty Alleviation, for speeding up the liberation and rehabilitation of scavengers.

14: The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment will launch a scheme to provide NationalScholarships to disabled persons for pursuing higher technical education. The scheme will be implemented underthe National Fund for People with Disabilities.

15: The Ministry of Culture will launch a National Mission for Manuscriptsto preserve and unlock the precious treasurehouse of scientific, intellectual, literary and spiritualknowledge in different Indian languages, contained in different kinds of material. Among other things, theMission will set up a National Manuscripts Library and promote ready access to these manuscripts throughpublication in book form as well as machine-readable form.