The planning commission has increased the plan outlay of Rajasthan from Rs 11,000 crore to Rs 14,000 crore, a 20% increase from last year, Chief Minister Vasundhara said in New Delhi.
She claimed the deputy chairperson of planning commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia was very pleased with the performance of the state. "In particular, the lone lady Hamida Begum was happy about the work done by us in the social sectors. Likewise, others also felt happy about our strides in various fields," Raje said.
She said the first four years of her rule were spent on turning around the state's Bimaru status. "We have managed to bring down the transmission losses from 42% to 33%. In the next couple of years, we are going to add about 7000 megawatts to our electricity generation and that should take care of our electricity problems. We can call our state Resurgent Rajasthan," she said with a sense of pride.
Her government is planning to focus on polishing the raw skills of students from IIT's and other institutes so that they could be taken off the road and gainfully employed.
Talking about the reservation to the Gujjars she said her chief secretary has written to the Centre on the issue and it is for the group of ministers to take a decision. "We have sent the recommendations of the commission by us which said it is time the Centre took a look at giving four to six % to nomadic tribes. I am not going into what the honourable Supreme Court has said about it," she said.
Raje regretted that the oil refinery that was to be set up in Rajasthan has now gone to Andhra Pradesh. "So long as ONGC was dealing with it Rajasthan was getting the refinary. Ever since new company has come into the focus things have changed," she said.
She thanked the planning commission for agreeing to set up a working group in Rajasthan to deal with the problem of water contamination, which is responsible for skin diseases. Both Rajasthan and the union government would spare equal number of experts to find out a solution to the problem.