The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Small savings target up for district

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 20, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Small savings target up for district

By Our Special Correspondent

COIMBATORE, AUG. 19. The Coimbatore district has been given a substantially higher small savings target for the current year, according to the Collector, S. Kosalaraman.

He told a press conference here on Friday that it would be Rs. 385 crores, about 25 per cent more than last year.

From the target of Rs. 186 crores for 2001-02 and 2002-03, it was raised to Rs. 310 crores last year. The achievement was 83 per cent in 2001-02.

Commending the excellent performance of the district with regard to small savings for which it received a trophy from the Chief Minister last week, he pointed out that in 2002-03 the district achieved 123 per cent of the target and the next year it was 112 per cent.

Several steps had been initiated to promote small savings in the district including motivating as much as one lakh students to open Post Office Recurring Deposit accounts.

During 2003-04, all the households in 14 village panchayats had been covered under the Post Office Recurring Deposit Scheme. During the current year, it had been planned to extend 100 per cent coverage to another 19 village panchayats.

The district had 3.53 lakh household post office RD scheme accounts in more than 530 post offices. "During the current financial year, two lakh more RD accounts would be added."

Hundi boxes were exclusively manufactured by a self-help group functioning at Subbegoundenpudur, Anamalai Block, marketed through the small savings wing of the Collectorate and distributed to school students.

The district received "local body incentive" of Rs. 95 lakhs last year because of its small savings performance, which was utilised for repairing 188 school buildings and 201 noon meal centres and for providing nine rural drinking water facilities.

This year, it was likely to get Rs two crores under the same head.

Clean villages

The Project Officer, District Rural Development Agency, P. Jeyabalakrishnan, said that the State Government had selected four panchayats in the district as "clean villages."

They were Semmipalayam (Palladam Block), Seelakkampatty (Pollachi South ), Kanakkampalayam (Tirupur) and Pottayandiporambu ( Kinathukadavu).

The total number of panchayats selected in the State under this category was 15. All the housesholds in these villages had latrines and thus there was no open defecation at all. Besides, they all had safe drinking water. They would get an award of Rs. five lakhs each.

He said the district administration had recommended these four panchayats for the Nirmal Puraskar Award given by the Central Government also. And if they were selected, they would get another Rs. five lakhs each.

Family cards

The Collector said that as against 3.67 lakh applications for new family cards, the district supply authorities had recommended cards for 1.82 lakh applicants.

While 74,000 applications had been rejected, the rest were under examination.

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