Aiming high

New Delhi, June 1: The UPA government’s Bharat Nirman project has caught India Inc’s fancy.

A report by the CII and McKinsey submitted to the Prime Minister today said, “The private sector should gear up to capture the opportunities that will come up in the rural sector. This includes operating and maintaining the infrastructure created.”

Till now, government funds have been used in the Rs 1,74,000-crore Bharat Nirman programme to build rural roads, electricity, irrigation, drinking water and sanitation, telecommunication and housing. The chamber’s proposal, if accepted, would bring in private participation for the first time.

Bharat Nirman, the government’s flagship rural development programme, is undertaken in partnership with state governments and Panchayati Raj institutions.

In the report, the CII suggested major changes to stimulate growth of the rural economy by creating employment engines.

“We believe that supplementing Bharat Nirman by creating employment engines for the rural economy — or Bharat Nirman Plus — is essential to reducing rural poverty,” the report said.

It said this could create employment for about 30 to 40 million people in rural areas and increase rural incomes by 1 per cent a year in five years.

The report also said there was a need to rejuvenate farm business by engineering a second green revolution and creating non-farm employment engines.

Presenting the report, former CII president Y.C. Deveshwar said, “The six areas covered by Bharat Nirman — roads, power, drinking water, housing, telecom and irrigation — were taken up by the study with focus on two most challenging areas of power and irrigation. We felt that in each of these areas, there was need for some major changes for successful execution.”

In power, the report stressed the need for developing alternative sources of electricity. It suggested locally owned power projects, in which the rural communities could take on the responsibility for pricing, operations and maintenance of plants.