By IANS
New Delhi : Assam needs to improve its record in utilisation of funds meant for rural development, Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said Wednesday.
“Assam is improving but there is scope for a lot more improvement,” Singh said at a state-specific ministry media briefing on Assam here.
Stating that there has been no report of diversion of funds in the state, he said, “However, there have been complaints of lack of transparency and slow work in the state.”
Giving details of the ongoing projects of the ministry in the northeastern state, the minister said that in fiscal 2006-07, budgetary allocation for the state under his ministry was Rs.10.48 billion against which Rs.11.81 billion was released.
“However, the total release including the demand-based programmes of the government was Rs.1,236.84 crore (Rs.12.36 billion) and an amount of Rs.1,606.33 crore (Rs.16.06 billion) was reported to have been spent,” he said.
For fiscal 2007-08, the budgetary allocation for the state under the ministry has been fixed at Rs.13.49 billion of which Rs.3.53 billion has been released.
Singh said that in 2006-07, seven districts in the state were covered under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), a rural employment guarantee scheme for people below the poverty line.
“Of the 798,179 households in the state who demanded employment, 792,270 households have been provided with it,” he said, adding that six more districts in the state have been included under the scheme in 2007-08.
“To generate awareness about NREGA, gram sabhas (village councils) have been convened by all districts in the state,” he said.
The minister said Assam was lagging behind when it came to the total sanitation campaign (TSC).
“In the northeast, Tripura has been a good performer and Sikkim is the best. But Assam has been lagging behind in this scheme. Given that the UN has declared 2008 as the international year of sanitation, we have asked Assam to improve its performance,” he said, adding that TSC projects have been launched in all 23 districts of the state.
In 2007, only three gram panchayats from the state have won the Nirmal Gram Purashkar award, which recognises successful sanitation programmes in villages.
Under the Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY), the government’s rural housing scheme, 125,411 houses were built in fiscal 2006-07 against the target of 109,214 in the state, Singh said.
For fiscal 2007-08, the budgetary allocation for the state in this scheme under the ministry is Rs.3.08 billion, of which Rs.1.25 billion has already been released.
Under the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), a scheme to provide self-employment opportunities to people living below the poverty line in rural areas, 15,511 self-help groups (SHGs) were formed in 2006-07.
“It is satisfactory, but I want faster work in this regard,” the minister said.
Under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), the rural road development programme, the minister said the ministry has cleared proposals amounting to Rs.31.49 billion for construction of 7,239.27 km of roads.
“Under Bharat Nirman, 5,182 habitations of 1,000-plus population and 3,950 habitations of 500-plus population in the state are proposed to be covered under this scheme,” Singh said.
He said that to ensure transparency in rural development work, of the 23 District Rural Development Agencies (DRDA) in the state, 21 DRDAs had held district vigilance and monitoring committee meetings in 2006-07.