Mulayam writes a cheque

So what8217;s Mulayam going to see to Saifai? For a start, it8217;s India8217;s only village with an air-strip, a multi-speciality hospital, an international-size sports stadium, a post-graduate college and a proposed lion safari park. A 220 kv power plant, exclusively for Saifai, gives it uninterrupted power.

The Sunday Express did a rough audit of Saifai8217;s bounty.

PGI Super-Speciality Hospital.
Price tag: Rs 170 crore
IT could give a plush Delhi hospital a run for its money. Six-storeyed, air-conditioned and fitted with 500 beds, a 400-strong medical and ancillary staff is planned for this medical luxury. Chief Secretary Neera Yadav terms it 8216;8216;the most ambitious project of the Uttar Pradesh government8217;8217;. 8216;8216;There should be super-speciality centres in places other than the state capital,8217;8217; she says, 8216;8216;why should patients have to come all the way to Lucknow for treatment?8217;8217;

Brigadier retd S.C. Dua, project director, Saifai PGI, rattles off the details: 8216;8216;The hospital is going to be complete by September-end 8230; It will be fully functional by December. We will have departments for cardiology, neurology, hematology, urology, neurosurgery, orthopaedics, ENT 8230; plus a blood bank. It is not going to be less than any prestigious hospital in India.8217;8217;

There8217;s more. 8216;8216;We also plan to build a medical college here,8217;8217; says Dua, 8216;8216;the proposal for that is now with the state government.8217;8217; For the moment, impressive housing for the doctors is in place. Twenty specialists have already been handed appointment letters.

On October 19, 2004, the state cabinet approved an amendment to the PGI Act, 1983, enabling the Lucknow-based Sanjay Gandhi Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences 8212; which will have a dedicated telecom link with the Saifai hospital, making tele-medicine possible 8212; to take managerial control of Mulayam8217;s dream project.

Ironically, the civil hospital in Etawah, the district HQ, is devoid of even basic facilities.

Chaudhary Charan Singh Degree College
Price tag: Rs 69 crore
THE Uttar Pradesh budget of 2004 allocated Rs 71 crore for education. Rs 69 crore of this went to higher education 8212; and all of it for upgrading a private institution, the Chaudhary Charan Singh Degree College in Saifai 8212; run by Mulayam8217;s brother and the state PWD minister, Shivpal Singh. Predictably, the matter is now in the Supreme Court.

The college is quite an extravagance. Sample this: Rs 27 crore has gone into setting up the computer and science labs, the library and the administrative block.

That aside, Rs 3.65 crore has been spent on a 300-bed boys8217; hostel, Rs 1.91 crore on a 150-bed girls8217; hostel, and Rs 1.86 crore for housing for the principal and teachers. All these buildings are fully air-conditioned, designed by Italian architects, no less. This college, say sources, has also received financial backing from Samajwadi Party MPs and MLAs.

8216;8216;We would be able to teach almost 2,500 students here. All top-level courses, including MBA, MCA, M.Tech, plus new courses like nanotechnology will be on offer. Students will come from all over the country,8217;8217; says Minister for Higher Education Ram Asrey Vishwakarma.

A teacher at the Amitabh Bachhan Inter College 8212; the class X level institution running in Saifai since 1997 8212; sums it up: 8216;8216;Students have been calling me from different parts of the country to know what kind of college it is. But their main apprehension is what they will do after college hours in a place like Saifai 8230; What will the quality of life be?8217;8217;

Sports stadia
Price tag: Rs 50 crore
IN 2004, the state government decided to upgrade an existing sports stadium in Saifai and make it international class. Rs 46.11 lakh was allocated in the state budget and it was decided to lay down an Astroturf surface for hockey, as well as build an Olympic-size swimming pool.

Another Rs 61.22 lakh was promised in this year8217;s budget for the same project. This took the total outlay to over Rs 1 crore.

It has now dawned on Sports Minister R.K. Chaudhary that the existing stadium in Saifai is 8216;8216;too small8217;8217;. 8216;8216;We have acquired a big piece of land,8217;8217; he says, 8216;8216;and a new stadium will be built there. This new stadium will be of truly international standards 8212; with provision for cricket, hockey and football matches. It will have fitness centres, a swimming pool 8230;8217;8217;

When the chief minister arrives in September, he will inaugurate the improved old stadium and lay the foundation stone for the successor stadium, which is estimated to cost Rs 50 crore. 8216;8216;One international match,8217;8217; says Choudhary, 8216;8216;and Saifai will be on the world map.8217;8217; Nice idea, nicer dream.

Sundry add-ons
Price tag: Rs 10 crore
WHEN Mulayam comes home to Saifai next month he will also inaugurate an air-conditioned, soundproof 1,000-seater auditorium at the Amitabh Bachchan Inter College. The state government has spent a good Rs 87 lakh on it.

There is a proposal to put in Rs 5.6 crore towards a lion safari park on 150 hectares of forest land near Saifai, in what was once 8212; and sometimes still is 8212; dacoit country. Clearances are awaited, and the area, says state chief wildlife warden Mohammad Ehsan, could become a nature lovers8217; paradise.

There8217;s a collateral benefit. Sections of the government also argue that by letting lions loose, the authorities will scare away dacoits.

That aside, there8217;s much loose change floating around:

8226; Rs 26 lakh for interior decoration of the tourist complex near the Sumer Singh Fort in Etawah.
8226; Rs 89 lakh for the Saifai-Etawah Festival 2005. The one in 2004 saw a bevy of Mumbai movie stars descend here.
8226; Rs 94 lakh for a bridge in Etawah.
8226; Rs 24 lakh for a cooperative management training institute.
8226; Rs 50 lakh for developing an artificial lake in Saifai as a tourist destination.

Saifai probably can8217;t believeits luck.

And in the other corner
Alka Pande
checks out the Congress8217; VIP constituencies, Rae Bareli and Amethi

A bridge over the Ganga at Dalmau. That8217;s what Rae Bareli was promised in January 1968 by Indira Gandhi. Thirty-seven years later, Sonia Gandhi, MP from Rae Bareli like her mother-in-law once was, turned promise into reality. She had Rs 30 crore released from the Central Road Fund. The foundation stone was laid in February this year, and construction began.

Just half a pillar was constructed when work stalled. Reason? 8216;8216;The state government is not releasing the money,8217;8217; say officials at the Uttar Pradesh Bridge Corporation, the construction agency.

The deadline for completion of this 39-pillar bridge is June 2007. 8216;8216;If they are taking so much time with one pillar, anyone can imagine how much time will be consumed in building the rest of the 38,8217;8217; says Rakesh Jaiswal, a Congress worker in Dalmau.

The Centre-state divide in Rae Bareli is more evident when one takes stock of roads. The Union government has released Rs 55 crore for construction of roads. Now take the busy 25-km stretch between Munshiganj and Dalmau.

The Centre allocated Rs 5 crore for this road, with the SP-run state government as the implementing authority. The work was given to a private contractor.

Today, there is no road, only potholes. 8216;8216;The road has already peeled off at several places,8217;8217; says Akhilesh Pratap Singh, the Congress spokesperson. The condition of other roads is even worse.

RAE Bareli8217;s 1.2 million voters live in a 4,609 square km area. Represented by the Nehru-Gandhis for years, the constituency has no good hotel, no national landmark, but lots of garbage dumps. Even the road to the Congress Party PR office at Pandey Kothi goes through a massive dump.

Pandey Kothi is the home of R.P. Pandey, assistant general manager, Institute of Telecom Industries ITI. 8216;8216;The filth you see is because the municipality does not do anything,8217;8217; says Sunil Srivastava of the Congress PR office. He blames the chairperson, a BJP member.

Still, people have faith in Sonia. Her gifts to Rae Bareli include a trauma centre and a tele-medicine unit at the district hospital, an FM radio centre, a direct train to Delhi, a mobile phone mother facility, a plastic park being set up with the help of GAIL, and a food processing park.

Then there are the promised revivals. ITI has been dying since Rae Bareli voted out Indira Gandhi in 1977. Of its 6,000 employees, about 1,200 have opted for voluntary retirement. The institute was lying non-functional, a dinosaur in the age of mobile telephony.

Sonia has decided to revive it. With a Rs 150 crore bonanza, the ITI campus is buzzing again.

Rae Bareli8217;s first industrial unit was a textile mill set up by the Jaipurias. It was later taken over by the state-run National Textile Corporation, and soon died. Now the Sheena Home Textiles and Carpet Factory is rekindling Rae Bareli8217;s fabric fantasies.

IN Amethi, which neighbours Rae Bareli and is Rahul Gandhi8217;s constituency, the Congress-led UPA government has pumped in Rs 100 crore from the Central Road Fund for 10 roads covering a 340 km length. There is also a Rs 25 crore grant for 97 km of rural link roads.

But today Amethi does not have even a single road where one can drive above 20 kmh. In fact, it has close to the worst roads in Uttar Pradesh.

The VIP constituency8217;s big asset is the Indian Institute of Information Technology, inaugurated recently by HRD Minister Arjun Singh. 8216;8216;It was the dream of Rajiv Gandhi to convert Amethi into a centre for information technology,8217;8217; says an effusive Bhola Tripathi, in charge of the Congress8217; Amethi office. 8216;8216;Rahul Gandhi has fulfilled it.8217;8217;

The government has already released Rs 50 crore for this Rs 80 crore project.

However, the hard truth is that in Rajiv Gandhi8217;s time, Amethi had 400 industrial units whirring away. Today it8217;s left with BHEL, HAL and Indo-Gulf Fertilisers.

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