A member in Lok Sabha today made a strong plea for grant of special category status to Jharkhand, saying the people of the state, which supplied half the country's minerals, were faced with poverty and malnutrition.
"Half the nation's minerals are supplied by Jharkhand which enriches the corporates sitting in Mumbai and Delhi...21 districts of the state are affected by left-wing extremism and most of the funds of the state government goes to pay for expenses of police and paramilitary forces," Nishikant Dubey (BJP) said during Zero Hour.
He said people of the state were victims of poverty and malnutrition and situation in 12 districts was "worrisome".
Given this situation, the Centre should accord special category status to Jharkhand so that the state gets more funds to meet the basic needs of the people, Dubey said.
He also attacked central ministers for making statements that such a status was being considered for Bihar but not for Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal.
"Such statements are being made even when the Raghuram Rajan Commission report has not come out," Dubey said. The commission was set up to determine the backwardness of states, among other things.
A special category state gets preferential treatment in central assistance and tax breaks. Currently, all seven northeastern states, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh enjoy this status.
RJD member Prabhunath Singh raised the problems relating to rural electrification, claiming that "100 per cent of the 16 or 25 KVA transformers installed in villages have burnt down as they are not able to take the load."
He demanded that the Centre should install 63 or 100 KVA transformers under the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojana as the Bihar government "is selling these transformers at higher than market rates.
