BANGALORE: The Government will launch a Rs. 600-crore World Bank-aided `Gram Swaraj' project in January 2007 in 1,343 gram panchayats in areas declared most backward.

The panchayats are spread over 39 most backward taluks in 14 districts identified by the D.M. Nanjundappa committee on regional imbalances.

Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj C.M. Udasi told presspersons here on Tuesday that the objective of the five-year project was to develop and strengthen the three-tier panchayati raj set-up in the State.

The Government had availed itself of a development loan of $120 million (Rs. 564 crore) from the World Bank and invested $13.33 million (Rs. 61 crore) from its coffers for the purpose. The overall outlay on the project would be Rs. 625 crore, he said.

The project would focus on vital aspects such as training panchayat members in general administration, financial management, implementation of rural water schemes, educational programmes, revenue mobilisation, environment maintenance, enforcing better service-orientation schemes and evolving measures for ensuring effective public participation, he explained.

Under the scheme, each gram panchayat would be given a grant of Rs. 38 lakh, 85 per cent of which would be a free grant and 15 per cent a conditional grant, in five phases. Although the project was envisaged to take off in September 2006 and conclude in September 2011 with a margin period of six months, the Government had already taken up the related groundwork and the project would be formally launched in January 2007, Mr. Udasi said.

Rural roads

The Government had identified 16,000 km of rural roads for development by 2009 under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. Work on building 1802.71 km of roads at an estimated cost of Rs. 303.60 crore launched in 2004-05 under the yojana was in progress. In 2000-2001, a sum of Rs. 103.57 crore was spent on building 1639.89 km of roads. Of the planned construction of 2649.98 km of roads in 2001-02, only 738.60 km had been completed with an outlay of Rs. 203.35 crore, Mr. Udasi said.

Land Army

The Karnataka Land Army Corporation had earned a net profit of Rs. 25 crore during 2005-06 by taking up construction projects on contract in Bangalore, Mysore, Belgaum, Gulbarga and Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh), Mr. Udasi said.

The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike had entrusted works amounting to Rs. 120 crore to the corporation. Besides it had secured four work orders through tenders in Belgaum (Rs. 15 crore), Gulbarga (Rs. 20.36 crore and Rs. 15 crore) and Jabalpur (Rs. 26.26 crore) during the current year.

It had fixed its revenue target for 2006-2007 at Rs. 400 crore, the Minister said.

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