The Hindu : National : Centre asks Assam to expedite rural development works

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 09, 2007
ePaper

National

National

Centre asks Assam to expedite rural development works

Special Correspondent

Guwahati: Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Wednesday asked the Assam government to expedite the implementation of various rural development schemes in the State. The Union Minister also urged the State government to ensure transparency in the implementation and warned officials against corruption.

Minister’s advice

Dr Singh’s advice came in course of a teleconference with Guwahati-based reporters during state-specific briefing on Assam in Delhi. He said that proper implementation of the rural development schemes would go a long way in wiping out the insurgency problem in Assam.

The Union Minister said that he had already written to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to expedite the implementation of rural development schemes. He expressed dissatisfaction over the slow progress in the implementation of the Total Sanitation Campaign and pointed out that against a target of covering 18.94 lakh households under individual household latrines for below poverty level families, only 1.45 lakh families have been covered so far.

APL families

He wondered why only three panchayats in Assam could win Nirmal Gram Puraskar against over 1,600 panchayats wining the award. The minister informed that against a target of covering 8.51 lakh above poverty line (APL) families under this scheme, only 0.09 lakh have been covered and only 1836 schools a target of 26,043. Among 14,910 anganwadi centers only 42 have been provided with sanitary latrines so far, he added.

The goal

He said that Assam has been lagging much behind the expected level and to achieve goal of providing every household of the country with sanitary latrines under Nirmal Bharat programme by 2012 Assam will have to provide 3.5 lakh BPL familes with such latrines every year in the next five years.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National