Haryana Budget: Not much to be happy about for Nuh
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s state budget for 2024–25 leaves out Nuh, the state’s most impoverished area and home to Meo Muslims.
With the exception of a mention of an impending airfield close to the Mumbai highway, the district, which has been struggling owing to severe infrastructure shortcomings in health, education, public transportation, etc., has not received any big projects. For more than ten years, Nuh has been anticipating each year the construction of a university, irrigation channels, potable water lines, hospitals, and schools in addition to a dedicated railway connection linking it to areas of Rajasthan and Haryana. But there was no significant statement made in this respect.
In the Vidhan Sabha, CM Khattar and Nuh MLA Aftab Ahmed had a lengthy discussion over this. Khattar encouraged Ahmed to applaud the news of the airstrip, but Ahmed brushed it off as a mockery of the district.
“The Budget has once again demonstrated that this district is the BJP’s stepson. It is the most backward and struggles for basic infrastructure,” Aftab Ahmed remarked. The locals have been waiting for irrigation water for over ten years, as have the students, doctors, and farmers for more medical facilities, but they have received nothing. The average person in this area does not own a business or facility from which he would profit from the air strip. They want trains to run in Rajasthan and Haryana, but they don’t have any.
The five airstrips in Haryana are situated in Bhiwani, a considerable distance from Gurugram and Faridabad, and none of them are in the Delhi-NCR region.
By linking the air route with key roads, it should be possible to offer an easier travel inside the NCR by building the airfield near to Gurugram. Additionally, there will be less reliance on the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport.
