Bharat Nirman

Bharat Nirman is an Indian business plan for creating and augmenting basic rural infrastructure.^[1] It comprises projects on irrigation, roads (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana), housing (Indira Awaas Yojana), water supply (National Rural Drinking Water Programme), electrification [Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana] and telecommunication connectivity.

Objectives

Bharat Nirman is a business plan for rural infrastructure which was implemented by the Government of India in order to provide some basic amenities to the rural India. The objectives of the plan are as followings.

• It aims at providing safe drinking water to all the under developed areas in India by 2012.
• It also aims to develop housing facilities for the poor. Initially the scheme targeted 60 lakh additional houses to be constructed for the poor within the year 2009, but now the plan has been extended to 2014 and the targeted house to be constructed has been increased to 1.2 crore.
• The plan also includes to cover 40% of the rural area with telecommunication facilities by the year 2014 and provide broadband coverage to all the 2.5 lakh Panchayats by the year 2012.
• The plans suggests to construct all weather roads by the year 2012 in order to connect all the villages of India having a minimum population of 500 ( 250 in case of hilly or tribal areas).
• The plan aims to provide electricity to every village by the year 2012.
• The plan aims to provide an additional one crore hectare of irrigational land by the year 2012.^[2]

Sub Divisions of Bharat Nirman

Bharat Nirman have been sub-divided into six parts. The Government of India will try to improve the infrastructural facilities of these six sections individually which will result in the overall development of the infrastructural facilities of the country.

• Waters
• Roads
• Housing
• Telephone
• Electricity
• Irrigation

Water Supply

Bharat Nirman was launched by the Government of India in 2005. Providing rural areas with safe drinking water facilities was one of the key objectives of the plan. It got implemented during 2005-06 to 2008-09. The plan aimed to cover 55,067 un-covered and 3.31 lakh under developed areas with safe drinking water facilities. It also aimed to improve the quality standard of drinking water of 2.17 lakh areas which had poor quality water supplies.^[3]

Bharat Nirman - Rural Drinking Water, Target and Achievement During(2005-06 TO 2008-09)

^[4]

• Actually covered habitation. in earlier report coverage includes habitations of ongoing schemes making total of 310698 habitations.

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana marker in a village in Punjab

Roads

The Government of India has several plans policies in order to improve the infrastructural facilities of rural roads.

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana

The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) was launched on December 25, 2000. The primary objective of PMGSY is to provide good quality all-weather roads in all the rural areas where urban-rural road connectivity is found to be very weak.^[5] All unconnected habitations with a population of more than 500 persons has been provided connectivity by 2007.^[6]

Housing

The main objective is to provide housing facilities to the rural areas of India. According to the plan the government of India will construct 60 lac houses for the rural areas by 2009. The scheme under this is named as Indira Awaas Yojana and is governed by the Ministry of Rural Development. It is mainly sponsored by the central government. The ratio of the sponsorship between the center and the state is 75:25.^[7]

Telephone

This plan aims to supply telecommunication facilities to remote areas of rural areas. It aims in increasing the rural telecommunication facilities by 40%. It also aims to supply broadband and Bharat Nirman Seva Kendras in 2.5 lac Panchayats. According to this plan the government of India will connect each and every village by telecommunication facilities. The plan is taken care of by the Department of Telecom which fall under the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology. There are 66,822 villages which are still left to be covered.^[8]

Rural Teledensity (for the month of February 2011)

^[9]

References

• official website of Bharat Nirman