BANGALORE: The special status for six backward districts of Hyderabad-Karnatak region by the Centre under Article 371(J) will focus on industries and human development index besides education and employment.
The regional tag coming to the six districts Gulbarga, Yadgir, Bidar, Bijapur, Koppal and Bellary after a long wait of 40 years is expected to incorporate the Telangana, Maratwada, Saurashtra and Vidarbha models who are already under Article 371, Union Labour minister Mallikarjun M Kharge, hailing from Gulbarga told Stoi on Saturday.
Yadgir is being marketed by the state government for setting up industries. In the Global Investors' Meet held in June this year, the government had come up with several concessions for those wanting to set up industries in Yadgir, which incidentally is the youngest district in Karnataka carved out in 2009.
The pathetic state of these districts was mentioned in the D M Nanjundappa committee which went into the regional imbalances in north Karnataka region a decade ago. In his report , Nanjundappa had suggested removal of discriminations and amendment to the Article 371. The report, was prepared after an exhaustive and scientific study over a two-year period and submitted to chief minister S M Krishna.
The report had identified 114 taluks and classified them as most backward, more backward, and backward for determining the priorities. Of them, 59 taluks were in north and 55 in south Karnataka.
In the Human Development Index report released in 2008 for Bijapur and Gulbarga, the highlight was all taluks of Bijapur were backward in terms of income and human development. Regarding Gulbarga it was at the bottom of the human development index ranking 26 thamong the then 29 districts.
There was celebration in the six districts on Saturday. Former CM N Dharam Singh's son Ajay Singh, who has been running an NGO for the uplift of the people in Gulbarga said: When AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi visited Gulbarga during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, he had promised the people and it has been done now.''
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