'BSP' now haunts the BJP in Madhya Pradesh | N.D.Sharma

Published on 19-03-2008 In National

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'BSP' now haunts the BJP in Madhya Pradesh

The acronym BSP had acquired a new meaning, quite distinct from Bahujan Samaj Party, during the 2003 Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh. The BJP had coined it to denote Bijli (electricity), Sadak (roads) and Paani (water) and hammered in its campaign on the utter failure of the Congress government of Digvijay Singh to provide these essential amenities to the people of the State. The same 'BSP' is now haunting the BJP as it prepares to face the electorate later this year.

The roads in the State are in a pretty bad shape, even some of those, which are financed by the Centre under various schemes. How 'sincerely' the ruling politicians of the State take their commitments can be gauged from the fact that the Congress had promised in its Assembly election manifesto in 1993 that it would, if it came to power, connect all the villages having a population of 500 or more with link roads. The State government did not even have a list of such villages (as per 1991 census) when the Congress was defeated in the elections ten years later. The list available with it was based on the 1981 census and the government could not claim that all the villages having a population of 500 or more (1981 census) had been connected with link roads.

The BJP, vying for power in 2003, promised to do what the Congress government could not. However, it was only at the fag end of its term that the BJP government remembered the villages in need of connecting roads. A couple of months ago, it announced that a little over 1700 villages would be connected with roads (constructed under the Prime Minister's Rural Road Scheme) soon. These villages have populations of 1,000 or more. The 500-population villages appear to have been altogether forgotten. The bad condition of the existing roads is another story.

In the four years of the BJP government, it appears, did not develop a mechanism to monitor the roads and undertake repairs whenever and wherever it was needed. It was only recently that chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan issued instructions to the Public Works Department (PWD) to formulate an action plan for carrying out repair of the existing roads in the State. It had been brought to the notice of the chief minister that the roads, over 7,000 km in length, needed immediate repair at an estimated cost of Rs 500 crore.

If the condition of the roads does not promise to the ruling party a smooth ride back to power in this year's elections, it has not yet found a good absorber to protect it from the shocks it is receiving from the inadequate and erratic supply of electricity. The State needs some 6200 mw of power during the peak period and it is short of around 1500 mw. However, these are only statistics, which do not convey the full story. Nearly 47 per cent of the available electricity is lost in what is euphemistically called transmission and distribution (T & D) losses – a major part of this, in fact, goes into theft. The government has failed to plug this loophole.

A major grievance of the participants at the Kisan Mahapanchayat (congregation of the farmers) recently called by the chief minister related to the erratic supply or non-supply of electricity for irrigation.

Villages get power for barely two to four hours. Even that is uncertain. There are blackouts without advance announcement. Electricity is often of "inferior" quality. There is no fixed time for power supply. It may come even at 2-30 in the morning. Three or four villages are connected with one transformer. When the load increases the transformer bursts. Then no one bothers to replace or repair it for days together. The bills, often heavily inflated, are, though, regularly sent to them.

In fact, the BJP, then in the opposition, had almost regularly made an issue of power and drinking water against the Digvijay Singh government. Even before the 2003 Assembly elections, the BJP leaders had been asking the Congress government to solve the power and water problems or "resign on moral grounds". The farmers in the State, the BJP leaders had claimed, was not getting power even for three hours and there was an acute shortage of drinking water in all parts of the State and the Government had failed to take remedial measures.

It is the same story again; only the ruling party has changed. What 'remedial' measures the present BJP government has taken to solve these problems? Hundreds of crores of rupees have been gobbled up by the politicians and bureaucrats in the name of providing clean drinking water to the people of the State over the few decades. Just a glimpse. The Upper Lake, which has considerably shrunk because of the encroachments over the years, is the main source of drinking water supply in Bhopal.

All the sewers of the city flow into it or into the Lower Lake. Japan provided a loan of Rs 247 crore in 1995 for diverting the sewers from flowing into the two major lakes and for de-weeding and de-silting of the two lakes. The project, known as Bhojwetland, was completed some years ago. As many as 27 sewers are still flowing into the Upper Lake and the other 28 sewers are flowing into the Lower Lake.

Three years ago, the State government had procured a loan of Rs 179 crore from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for "streamlining" the drinking water supply in Bhopal. The drinking water supply in the State capital this year is much worse than it was last year or the year before. With its fascination for giving shuddha Sanskrit names to its projects, the BJP government launched, last year, 'Project Uday' for ensuring clean drinking water supply in four cities of Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur and Gwalior. A middle-rung IAS officer has been put in charge of the project and a sum of Rs 1366 crore (obtained from State, Central and foreign agencies) has been placed at his disposal. There is as yet no sign of any improvement in the water supply.

The condition in villages and towns away from the major cities is just abominable. The people in these places have been crying for drinking water even before the winter was out. What happens to them when the summer sets in, one can only imagine. The Congress is no less responsible than the BJP for denying the most essential amenities to the people. But it has no compunction in using the BJP's 'BSP' weapon against the BJP government in its bid to regain power.

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