Large promises

Prime Minister Vajpayee is terribly interested in rural development these days. On his birthday he inaugurated Swajaldhara, a nation-wide water conservation programme, and promised a drought-stricken rural populace that every village would have water by 2004. In December 2002 he addressed and heard out a rare gathering of panchayat leaders in Delhi. There, he promised to amend the Panchayati Raj Act, enabling central funds to be directly routed to village panchayats. Moreover, he has met district rural development agency chief executives. State rural development ministers have been asked to update him on programmes. There is a plan to call a meeting of chief ministers, to ask them to take rural growth more seriously