Effective management would have reduced drought woes: Khadse

The effect of drought would have been minimised if the Rs 70,000 crore funds spent on irrigation during the last decade were utilised for effective management of water, Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Eknath Khadse today said.
Initiating the debate on budget, Khadse said Rs 70,000 crore spent on irrigation has gone down the gauntlet.
"Had your management been good, the severity of drought would have been minimised," he said.
Questioning the state government for hiding the irrigation potential figures in the economic survey, he said, "In the last economic survey, the irrigation potential was 17.9 per cent in 2010-11, while in this year's survey, the 2010-11 figures are 'not available'. This has been done to avoid conflict between the irrigation and agriculture departments," he said.

Maharashtra had slid in its rankings in education and industrial development sectors, as compared to other states, Khadse alleged.
He criticised the government for failing to make the state self sufficient in power sector and not fulfilling its promise of making the state loadshedding-free by December 2012.

Slamming the state budget, he said non-plan expenditure was more than the planned expenditure while the plan size has increased by only Rs 1,000 crore.
"When non-plan expenditure increases, there is no scope for development works. 88 per cent of the state's income is spent on administrative expenses," he added.
Demanding information on infrastructure projects completed by taking a loan of Rs 2.70 lakh crore, Khadse added "Whatever is on going are all on BOT," and that thay were signs of bankruptcy.