The Minister has accomplished something for his home state of Tamil Nadu which, perhaps, very few of his ministerial colleagues can boast of, certainly not his junior minister, K H Muniyappa.    
                    
Over the last three years (2004-05 to 2006-07), Baalu’s Ministry has spent a fifth of the total funds it spent on the development of National Highways in the country in Tamil Nadu. To be precise, 20.14 per cent of the total spending of Rs 53,765.93 crore was spent in Tamil Nadu on as many as 30 major projects — a whopping Rs 10,828.72 crore.

Curiously, it was Muniyappa who provided detailed information on this in Parliament earlier this week. The 30 projects involves development of over 1,353 kms of National Highway development in the state by way of construction of bypasses, port leading roads, conversion of single, two and four lanes to double, four and six lanes, respectively.

Tamil Nadu, one of the more developed states enjoying better physical infrastructure facilities in the country, is lucky to have received disproportionately large funds though it accounts for less than 7 per cent of the country’s population.

Other states
There are other larger states in the country, both in terms of their geographical spread and population.
While Tamil Nadu accounts for about 4,183 kms of National Highway, larger states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh each account for more than 5,000 kms of National Highway.

Only Uttar Pradesh comes anywhere close to Tamil Nadu in terms of funds allocation for Highway development during the period. Baalu’s Ministry has spent Rs 7,155.08 crore in the state wherein for Rajasthan the money spent was Rs 4,946 crore.

It would seem that Minister of State for Highways and Transport K H Muniyappa has not been able to do what his boss has done for Tamil Nadu.

Karnataka has been able to get just six Highway projects during the period for which Rs 2081.31 crore were spent, i.e. just 3.9 per cent of the total money spent for National Highway development projects in the country.
Karnataka has a Highway network of 3,842 kms and of this 618 kms are still single lane.

Moreover, a 60-km stretch of National Highway in the State has been inoperative for the last six months due to poor maintenance.