Tamil Nadu - Salem   

Team from Tokyo University visits Salem

Special Correspondent

To submit report to funding agencies in Japan

SALEM: A team of research scholars from Tokyo University in Japan held a detailed discussion with officials from the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) here on Wednesday on various welfare schemes that were being implemented in the district.

This six-member team, as a part of the Japanese Official Development Assistance, was here to assess the performance and the utility value of the development works.

"Based on our field study and assessment, we will submit our report to the agencies, which have sent us," said one of the team members. Japan has been a major funding agency for various development works being carried out in the country.

For more than an hour, the team members interacted with the officials of the DRDA including its Project Officer T. K. S. Manimanthiri about the schemes, which the DRDA was executing.

They also evinced keen interest in knowing about its financial components. They appreciated the efforts of the Salem DRDA to ensure "transparency and efficiency'' by introducing the video-conferencing facilities in nine of the 20 panchayat unions in the district.

Mr. Manimanthiri told them that the Salem DRDA would perhaps the first in the State to utilise the advantages of the information technology fully by adopting the videoconferencing mode to discuss the development works in which the officers of concerned unions could directly interact and simultaneously. He further added that the same would soon be expanded to other unions too.

The team members - Eiji Yamaji, Yasuoki Takagi, Tatsuo Yanagita, Takayuki Minato, Masao Makiyama and V. Anbumozhi - were told about the schemes being undertaken under the Self Sufficient Scheme and Total Sanitation Campaign in which the involvement of beneficiaries was encouraged. The other schemes included poverty alleviation, women empowerment, total sanitation, health and education.

Later they visited a toilet park at the Collectorate complex and carried out field inspection in the district.

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