The Hindu : CMs' meet to review rural schemes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 30, 2003

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CMs' meet to review rural schemes

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 29. The Rural Development Minister, Kashiram Rana, has called a Chief Ministers conference here on July 7 to review the various rural development schemes in the States. The Minister will also visit all the States and Union Territories to make an on-the-spot assessment of the performance of these programmes.

The decision was taken following the dismal performance of many States in implementation of the schemes. The Minister himself expressed dissatisfaction, particularly over the implementation of the Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), at a review meeting here today.

Mr. Rana's first visit would be to Uttar Pradesh on June 8 where he would hold meetings with the State authorities since the performance of the SGSY was the worst in the State.

Expressing concern over the poor utilisation of funds under the scheme, Mr. Rana said he would take up the matter with the banking institutions immediately since their total credit mobilisation for the scheme had been only 44 per cent during the past four years.

As against the total availability of Rs. 1,143.36 crores, the utilisation had been only Rs. 881.13 crores, which was 77.07 per cent of the funds released in 2002-03.

The implementation of the SGSY was also poor in the north-eastern States, Bihar, Orissa, Uttaranchal, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and this had brought down the overall performance percentage of the other States where the implementation had been successfully carried out such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Gujarat.

The SGSY was launched by the Rural Development Ministry in 1999 as a major self-employment programme in rural India.

It aims to assist poor families above the poverty line by organising them into self-help groups through the process of social mobilisation, training and capacity building, resulting in income-generating assets through a mix of bank credit and Government subsidy.

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