The Karnataka State Planning Board Deputy Chairman and former chief secretary A Ravindra directed the Zilla Panchayat CEO Chennappa Gowda, on Wednesday to prepare a special development plan for the whole district.
Speaking at an official meeting held at the Deputy Commissioner’s office, he reviewed the works that were taken up on the recommendations of the Planning Board and discussed the new schemes that were to be implemented.
He said that integrated rural and urban development should take place in this plan. “This is the first time that district planning of urban and rural sectors is being integrated,” he observed. He added that development of these two sectors should be looked at simultaneously. The project will take place over a span of 8 years and will concentrate  agriculture, health, education and sanitation among others. The schemes implemented last year have been satisfactory, he confirmed on examination of the reports.
He noted that the D M Nanjundappa Committee had prepared a report to eradicate regional imbalance in 2002. This year, he said that the measures in the report would be implemented.
According to the report, 114 taluks in the State had been identified as backward. Of these, 39 were classified as most backward and 40 were identified as more backward. Based on the report, the State government was going to start various programmes in these taluks, addressing various problems such as infrastructure and so on, he said. This special development plan was figured in the 2007-08 budget. An amount of Rs 1,571 crore had also been earmarked for the purpose of development of these identified taluks, he said. The Committee had also chalked out the high priority sectors, for each taluk. The District Planning Committee designated for the purpose would be referring to the Administrative Training Institute to prepare the plan that would visualise the next five years. The committee will be chaired by the ZP CEO and the Vice Chairman will be the Mayor.
The special development plan would also be part of the eleventh five year plan which would come into effect this year and that every district would be required to prepare a development plan.
Addressing the drinking water supply issue in the district, he commented that the supply was fairly satisfactory, except for two villages - Shirmahalli in H D Kote and Yelwal in Mysore. However, he emphasised the need for a comprehensive, long term plan in this regard.
He further said that the recharging of borewells, and watershed programmes were on the cards.
Deputy Commissioner S Selvakumar and ZP CEO Chennappa Gowda were present.