The Hindu : National : PM to inaugurate meet on rural development

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 16, 2004

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National

PM to inaugurate meet on rural development

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 15 . The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is expected to inaugurate a conference of the Chief Ministers and Rural Development Ministers on "Poverty Alleviation and Rural Prosperity" here on June 28.

The two-day conference will review the various rural development schemes initiated by the previous National Democratic Alliance Government besides focussing on the implementation of the rural development programmes to achieve the targets agreed upon in the Common Minimum Programme.

The conference will deliberate upon the provisions and implementation of the Tenth Five Year Plan, wage employment scheme, infrastructure development, including various schemes of rural housing and the rural connectivity, an important aspect of which is the ambitious Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana.

The other issues likely to be taken up during the conference are the devolution of power to the Panchayati Raj Institutions as the implementation of the 73rd and 74th has been far from satisfactory and an amendment to the Constitution to give more powers to PRIs is awaited. Panchayati Raj is now a separate Ministry under Mani Shankar Aiyar but more or less continues to be a part of Rural Development until it has its own budget and infrastructure.

Another important aspect of the conference is the stress on the formation of Self-Help Groups for financial empowerment and better implementation of schemes, training and capacity-building, utilisation of funds, credit mobilisation, market support and special projects under the Swaranjayanti Gram Swaraj Yojana.

Bihar will figure prominently as it is one of the most backward States where funds for the Centrally-sponsored schemes had virtually been stopped for the past several years due to non-utilisation of the funds released earlier. The Union Rural Development Minister, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, has been saying that his priority would be to give his native State its due. He has often spoken about a special package for Bihar but said that the priority was to give Bihar its due from the Central quota. The eight Northeastern States will also get enough attention as they figure high in the list of priorities of the Minister.

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