NEW DELHI: The Union Rural Development Ministry has changed the criteria for awarding Nirmal Gram Puraskar to gram panchayats by revising the slabs for classification of population and amount of award money.

Under the revised criteria, those panchayats having less than 1,000 population will receive Rs. 50,000 as award in cash, while those having a population of 1,000 or more but less than 2,000 will receive Rs. 1 lakh. The gram panchayats having a population of 2,000 or more but less than 5,000 will now get Rs. 2 lakh For the gram panchayats having a population of 5,000 or more but less than 10,000 will get Rs. 4 lakh, while those having a population of more than 10,000 will get Rs. 5 lakh.

However, there is no change in the award scheme for other panchayati raj institutions and individual organisations, which play a key role in elimination of the practice of open defecation and promote sanitation and hygiene. Under the existing guidelines, the gram panchayats with a population of up to 5,000 are eligible for an award money of Rs. 2 lakh and those with more than 5,000 population will receive Rs. 4 lakh.

The change follows suggestions made at the conference of State Ministers for Drinking Water and Sanitation held earlier this year. Many State Governments had suggested a change in the existing guidelines in respect of population classification in gram panchayats. It was pointed out that the States where panchayats have less population were receiving more money compared to the States with larger population in each panchayat. Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh assured the Ministers that their suggestions would be considered and anomalies, if any, removed.

Since 2005 Nirmal Gram Puraskar has been awarded to 809 panchayati raj Institutions under the Total Sanitation Campaign to promote sanitation and hygiene.

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