Allow states flexiblity in implementing rural projects: Jairam Ramesh
The Union ministry of rural development proposes to introduce flexibility in implementation of its flagship programmes across the country.
Minister Jairam Ramesh said, “In a phased manner, 50 per cent of the funds earmarked for rural development programmes will be transferred to state governments to implement the schemes as per their requirements, subject to broad guidelines. The rest of the funds will be spent as per the national guidelines prescribed for each programme.”
He said so during his address at a ‘National Consultation on Gender Empowerment’ here today. Ramesh said India was a country with great diversity. And, all nationally conceived programmes, which are subject to guidelines, suffer from inflexibility. For instance, he said, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), to connect all habitations with at least 500 people each by all-weather roads, hadn’t been able to address the problem of connectivity in most tribal areas as well as in the desert areas of Rajasthan. “This has affected service delivery, where it is most essential,” he observed.
Some state governments, he said, as in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and, lately, Maharashtra, had taken on themselves to connect the smaller habitations left out of the PMGSY. He reminded state governments that building rural roads was primarily their job and because that had not happened adequately, the Centre had to introduce the PMGSY.
Ramesh asserted gender empowerment was a built-in component in most flagship programmes of his ministry. He said rural roads had improved the mobility of women, increased continuation of schooling by adolescent girls, who can now cycle on better paved roads, and made the delivery of health services by accredited activist-workers more efficient.
On the PMGSY, he said, only 60 per cent of the work was complete, whereas the programme should have ended in 2007; it would now take till 2017. He named West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Chhattisgarh as the laggards.
Ramesh, called for greater gender sensitivity in the implementation of the total sanitation campaign, aimed at ending open defecation. Quoting 2011 census data, the minister said 60 per cent of village households did not have access to proper toilet facilities. He praised the success of Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh and said about a third of gram panchayats in Maharashtra had become free of open defecation.
The minister pulled up the administrative machinery for implementing it half-heartedly, mainly aimed at constructing low-cost toilet blocks. He said the issue was far more sensitive and directly affected empowerment of women.