Blaming the opposition Congress for keeping Gujarat’s tribal-dominated areas backward, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday unveiled as many as 23 projects worth over Rs 3000 crore for five tribal-dominated districts under his Gujarat Gaurav Abhiyan.
With the Gujarat polls later this year, this is Modi’s second round of tribal outreach after his rally in Dahod where he had launched developmental projects worth Rs 23,000 crore.
“Forget other parts of the tribal areas, a former Chief Minister (Amarsinh Chaudhary) who belonged to this area (South Gujarat) couldn’t even construct a water tank in his own village,” said the Prime Minister.
Training his guns on the Congress without naming it, Modi said that people of the tribal communities couldn’t taste the fruit of development and were kept away from basic amenities including good roads, water, healthcare and education.
“When I took responsibility as Gujarat Chief Minister, there wasn’t any science stream college in the 400-km-long tribal belt right from Ambaji to Umbergaon. There was a time when tribals, dalits, poor and women had to spend their entire life to ensure their basic needs. Since the past couple of decades, even the remotest tribal villages have started getting facilities,” the Prime Minister said while addressing a large gathering at tribal Khudvel village in Navsari district.
Tribal areas are now having good roads, electricity, tap water for drinking, healthcare and education facilities at their doorsteps, he claimed adding that tribal areas of Gujarat are getting advantage of double engine government (BJP-ruled government at the Centre and State) for the last eight years.
The Prime Minister struck a chord with the tribal people asking in Gujarati, “Tamey Vaccine Lai Lidhu” (Have you taken Vaccine?) and apologised for being late at the venue.
“I used to come to tribal areas of Navsari district by bus (as RSS pracharak), but never slept hungry. In my early days, I learnt a lot from people of tribal communities that include discipline, cleanliness, being protective towards environment etc.,” said a nostalgic Modi even as he praised the tribal people of Dang district for adopting natural farming.
Of the 40 tribal-influenced assembly seats situated across the State’s tribal belt flanking Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, 27 are reserved for candidates belonging to Scheduled Tribes (ST). The BJP and Congress currently have 12 seats each. The BJP got lesser seats than the Congress in 2017 but its ranks swelled due to desertions from Congress. Of the 27 ST reserved assembly constituencies, 11 are situated in these five districts that include three in Surat district, two in Tapi, Dang 1, Navsari 2 and three in Valsad district.
The tribals in the region had protested the ambitious Narmada-Par-Tapi River Linking Project fearing displacement of villages. Following the protests, that too, in an election year the Government moved swiftly to announce shelving the project.
Modi performed the groundbreaking (Bhumi Pujan) for 13 water supply projects worth Rs 961 crore for residents of Tapi, Navsari and Surat districts. He also performed the Bhumi Pujan of a Rs 542-crore Medical College in Navsari district and inaugurated the Madhuban Dam-based Astol regional water supply project, built at the cost of about Rs 586 crores. These projects will provide safe and adequate drinking water to the residents of the five tribal-dominated districts in South Gujarat.
“Some people say that we are doing such work keeping in mind the elections. I have been in public life for over two decades. I challenge them to show me a single week when I did not launch a developmental project. In 2018, some people had claimed that we were doing it for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls,” he said.
Besides, he inaugurated a power substation constructed at a cost of over Rs 85 crores to provide electricity to residents of the Tapi district. A sewage treatment plant with a capacity of 14 MLD, worth ₹20 crores, was also inaugurated for Valsad district to facilitate wastewater treatment.
Moreover, Modi laid the foundation stones for eight water supply projects worth Rs 549 crores for tribal areas and a road project connecting Khergam and Pipalkhed to be built at the cost of ₹33 crores in Navsari district. Another four-lane road will be constructed between Navsari and Bardoli via Supa, at a cost of about ₹27 crores.
