Green Shoots

The India Today State of the State Conclave on Madhya Pradesh put the spotlight on the huge strides the state has made vis-a-vis agriculture and also the distance it has to cover in some others areas of development

- Kaushik Deka

The people of Madhya Pradesh must analyse why ‘Mama’ is so necessary,” Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said at the India Today State of the State Conclave in Bhopal on March 29, in response to the query: why should the people of the state vote for him a fourth time? Chouhan is popularly referred to as mama (maternal uncle) across the state.

Delivering the keynote address, the chief minister chalked out a future roadmap for development and also gave an account of his government’s performance in the past decade. “When I took charge, my first priority was to improve the road network, electricity and agriculture,” he said. His reform measures in agriculture, including smart water management have resulted not only in surplus production but also bumper crops even during a drought season.

Being an election year, Chouhan was eager to roll out the numbers. And some were impressive—irrigated land increased from 7.5 lakh hectare to 40 lakh hectare; the 24x7 power supply target achieved in 2013 with 18,000 MW electricity; seven new medical colleges set up; and the salary of government primary school teachers hiked up to Rs 50,000 per month.

The chief minister, however was unhappy with the state’s performance in education and healthcare, saying his government needs to work harder in these two areas. Chouhan also said that his government had put special focus on employment-generating industries like tourism and urban development. “We are going to spend Rs 83,000 crore on urban development,” he said.