Maya meets Pant, gets funds and a firing

And it was no routine meeting with the usual pleasantries exchanged. Mayawati was made carry the cross for UP’s poor performance in just about every sphere of governance, including wasteful government expenditure through the jumbo cabinets.

From power shortage in the over 20,000 villages to the poor literacy levels, the Chief Minister received a dressing down on every count. ‘‘She did not realise it was the Tenth Plan outlay which was to be discussed and not the routine annual plan exercise,’’ a senior UP official said.

Pant peppered his hard-talk with hard statistics on the state’s dismal performance which he put before her — 31.5 per cent of the state’s population is below the poverty line and per capita income is less than 41 per cent of the national average.

Mayawati was asked to act so that UP does not continue to pull down the national social index. She was told to look into the fall in foodgrain supply.

Mayawati had to also give a specific assurance to the Planning Commission that she would undertake a time bound total electrification of the state, which included giving power to 3,600 villages in remote parts of the state through non-conventional sources.

Pant, official sources said, expressed dissatisfaction over the UP State Electricity Corporation’s performance, which registered a loss of around Rs 3,069 crore in the last fiscal year.

Uttar Pradesh’s core plan outlay has been fixed on the basis of identifiable resources by the state at Rs 7,250 crore as against last year’s which was in the tune of Rs 8,400 crore.

Though the Commission promised her help for poverty eradication and increase in per capita income, Pant made it clear that it was for her government to improve the state’s investment climate.