By IANS,
New Delhi : The government Wednesday approved a Rs.683 crore project to improve the living standards of rural areas in four northeastern states — Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura — fighting high poverty ratios.
The plan, North East Rural Livelihood Project, or NERLP, was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs that at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The project will cover nearly 300,000 households in 1,624 villages in the four states.
The project will cost an estimated Rs.683.2 crore ($144.4 million), an official statement said.
Of the total cost, the World Bank has agreed to provide an assistance as a soft loan of Rs.614.8 crore ($130 million) and the central government will fund Rs.68.4 crore ($14.4 million) over a period of five years.
According to official figures, nearly 26 percent of population in Mizoram lives below the poverty line. The figure stands at 25 percent in Nagaland and Sikkim.
Tripura is among the states in India facing acute poverty. It has 36 percent of the population living below the poverty line.
The ministry of development of north eastern region will implement the project to improve rural livelihoods especially that of women, unemployed youth and the most disadvantaged in the four states.
The ministry will create sustainable community institutions targetted to increase the economic and livelihood opportunities by developing partnership of community institutions for natural resource management, microfinance, market linkages and sectoral economic services.
The project proposes to target the poorest of the poor on priority.