Four battalions sought to curb crime in NCR: Haryana CS

Fiscal crunch

On being queried about the fiscal condition,especially as the state recently had to enter the market twice in less than a month to raise nearly Rs 1,108 crore by issuing Haryana Government Stock (Securities) of 10-year tenure to finance its capital expenditure,Chaudhery said it was a matter of concern but “we will overcome it soon.”

“It is difficult but not impossible. We are looking to get maximum from our existing revenue generating sources,” he added.

Power woes

Chaudhery admitted that the situation in power sector was grave. “Apart from coal shortage,it is the poor quality of coal that is not letting us run our projects go for full generation. We hope that Centre would take a policy initiative on importing coal to deal with the issue,” he added.

At present the power demand in state varies between 6,500 MW and 5,000 MW. The state claims to supply domestic urban areas 24 hour power supply. The rural domestic customers get it for 12 hours,industry 16 to 18 hours and agriculture sector only 8 hours of supply.

On RTE

“I know there is enough ambiguity on how to deal with the present situation as classrooms in many of the institutions are vacant for want of adequate number of children under the RTE Act. Soon,we will meet the Education Department officials to ensure that all the children from the poor strata are admitted to the schools,” Chaudhery said.

SEZ flop show

On being reminded that the state government has asked the Reliance Industries Limited to return 1,400 acres of land that was given to it for setting up an SEZ at an estimated cost of Rs 40,000 crore,Chaudhery said that the economic slowdown coupled with the problems pertaining to the land acquisition has shattered the very idea of SEZ. “Fortunately,we in Haryana did not have many multi-product SEZs except for the Reliance Special Economic Zone. The IT related SEZs to be built on small land pieces are working well. We have now pinned our hopes on the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor for boosting our industrial growth prospects,” he said.