ನಂಜುಂಡಪ್ಪ ವರದಿ: ಸಮತೋಲಿತ ಪ್ರಾದೇಶಿಕ ಅಭಿವೃದ್ಧಿಯ ಈಡೇರದ ಭರವಸೆThe Nanjundappa Report: the unfulfilled promise of balanced regional development

A report that named our inequality

Every family in North Karnataka knows the feeling without needing a chart: the roads, the colleges, the hospitals, the factories, and the jobs always seem to be somewhere else. In 2002, a respected economist put that lived experience into hard numbers — and the government of the day accepted it.

The High Power Committee on Redressal of Regional Imbalances, chaired by Dr. D.M. Nanjundappa, was set up around the year 2000 and submitted its report in 2002. Its job was simple and honest: study why some parts of Karnataka had raced ahead while others were left behind, and recommend how to fix it.

The committee did not guess. It built a Comprehensive Composite Development Index using 35 indicators — covering agriculture, industry, trade and finance, economic and social infrastructure, and population — and scored all 175 taluks of the state. (Zenodo critical analysis; CMDR study)

The verdict: 114 backward taluks

The findings were stark. Out of 175 taluks, 114 were classified as backward — broken down into 39 "most backward," 40 "more backward," and 35 "backward" taluks. (CMDR)

Crucially, a large share of the "most backward" taluks were clustered in the Hyderabad–Karnataka region — today's Kalyana Karnataka. (Deccan Herald) This is the heart of the matter for our region: the backwardness of North Karnataka was never an opinion or a complaint. It was an official, measured fact, signed off by the state's own committee.

The promise: ₹31,000 crore over eight years

To close the gap, Nanjundappa recommended a Special Development Plan (SDP) with an investment of roughly ₹31,000 crore at 2002-03 constant prices, to be spent over eight years, with extra money directed specifically to the most backward areas. (Zenodo) The SDP was finally launched in 2007 and was meant to be completed by 2014–15. (researchgate.net)

That timeline alone tells a story. A plan meant to run for eight years has now been limping along for nearly two decades.

Where the promise broke

The money did flow — but slowly, unevenly, and with serious questions about whether it reached the people it was meant for. Press reporting indicates that against allocations of around ₹38,675 crore, roughly ₹31,155 crore was released and about ₹28,951 crore spent between 2007 and recent years — yet legislators and experts across party lines complain that the backwardness on the ground has barely shifted. (Deccan Herald) (Exact totals vary by source and year, so treat these figures as the reported range, not a final audited number.)

The criticisms are pointed and on the record:

• Funds diverted away from the backward taluks they were earmarked for, raised in the Assembly itself.
• Allocations that don't match the formula — the actual spending did not consistently follow the report's own ranking of most backward, more backward, and backward.
• No visible change in status — critics note that "most backward" taluks should have graduated to a better category by now, but in too many places "there is nothing to show on the ground." (Deccan Herald)

Even the constitutional safeguard that followed — Article 371J, inserted by the 98th Constitutional Amendment and effective from 1 January 2013, which created a development board and reservations in education and jobs for the Kalyana Karnataka districts of Bidar, Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Raichur, Koppal and Ballari (Wikipedia) — has not closed the gap. In November 2024, the state ordered a high-level inquiry into alleged irregularities at the Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board itself. (Deccan Chronicle)

Why this matters to us

The Nanjundappa Report is not a grievance — it is the state's own promise in writing. The diagnosis was correct, the prescription was clear, and the money was sanctioned. What failed was the will to deliver it honestly and on time.

For the Kittur Kalyan Karnataka Sena, this is the core of regional justice: we are not asking for favours. We are asking that a development plan our own government wrote, costed, and accepted be fully funded, spent where it was promised, and audited in the open. Twenty years late is not too late to keep a promise. North Karnataka has waited long enough.