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Journalism of Courage
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman briefly touched upon a scheme to boost infrastructure in villages along the border with China in her Budget speech. Prime Minister Narendra Modi later mentioned that developing infrastructure in such villages are also necessary for the country’s security.
In her speech, Sitharaman said that border villages with sparse population, limited connectivity and infrastructure often get left out from development gains. Now, under a Vibrant Villages programme, “such villages on the northern border will be covered”, and activities will include “construction of village infrastructure, housing, tourist centres, road connectivity, provisioning of decentralised renewable energy, direct-to-home access for Doordarshan and educational channels, and support for livelihood generation”.
She said that “additional funding for these activities will be provided, existing schemes will be converged”, and their outcomes will be defined and monitored on a “constant basis”.
Modi later said that a new announcement has been made for the “mountainous regions of India along the entire belt of the Himalayas”, “keeping in mind that life should be made easy to prevent migration”. He said that “for the first time, the Parvatmala scheme is being started for such areas as Himachal, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Northeast”.
Under the scheme, the government will build “modern system of transportation and connectivity on the mountains” which will help “the border villages of our country” become vibrant. “It is also necessary for the security of the country, they will get a lot of power,” he said.
The Border Management funds allocated to the Ministry of Home Affairs have seen more than 42 per cent jump to Rs 2,517.02 crore from Rs 1921.39 crore last year.
The announcement is important as it comes at a time when China has been not only improving infrastructure along the 3,488-km border with India, but is also building more than 600 “model villages”, which Indian security experts believe can also be used by the Chinese army. Building of these villages has also been mentioned in China’s new land border law that came into force from January 1.
