A SPECTOS POLÍTICOS

India’s Budget 2007-08, introduced by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in Parliament on February 28, 2007, claims to be aimed at “faster and more inclusive growth”. Accordingly, increased outlays have been made for rural infrastructure programmes, social sector programmes and under various heads for agriculture. These programmes are mainly implemented through government’s District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), a professional agency capable of managing the anti-poverty programmes of the Ministry of Rural Development. It coordinates with the line department, the Panchayati Raj Institutions, the banks and other financial institutions, resources required for poverty reduction effort in the district. It shall be their endeavour and objective to secure inter-sectoral and inter-departmental coordination and cooperation for reducing poverty. The governmental initiative are briefly presented as follows:

1) Bharat Nirman: to unlock the potential of rural India the

Government has launched a time bound business plan named Bharat Nirman in 2005-06 to be implemented from 2005-2009. Six components included under the Bharat Nirman are irrigation, drinking water, electrification, roads, housing and rural telephone.

Physical targets under the each of the components have been firmed up and they are as under.

Source: www.bharatnirman.gov.in/download.pdf

Allocation for the Bharat Nirman programme for upgrading rural infrastructure has gone up by 31.6% from Rs 18,696 crore to Rs 24,603 crore. In the two years since Bharat Nirman was launched, around 12,198 km of rural roads have been completed, 783,000 rural houses have been constructed, and 914,000 houses are under construction. Some 19,758 villages have been covered so far under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana, and 15,054 villages have been provided with a telephone against the target of 20,000 villages.

2) Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA): School education has been given

primacy with an increase in allocation of 35%, from Rs 17,133 crore to Rs 23,142 crore. Of this, Rs 10,671 crore will be for the SSA. Teachers’ training institutions are to be strengthened with an increase in budget from Rs 162 crore to Rs 450 crore. Around 200,000 more teachers will be appointed in 2008, and 500,000 more classrooms constructed.

3) The midday meal scheme gets Rs 7,324 crore. Children in upper

primary classes in 3,427 educationally backward blocks will also be covered. The transfer to Prarambhik Shiksha Kosh will increase from Rs 8,746 crore to Rs 10,393 crore. To increase access to secondary education, the outlay has been doubled from Rs 1,837 crore to Rs 3,794 crore.

4) Means-cum-merit scholarships: The SSA has increased the

enrolment rate in schools to 96%, but the dropout rate continues to be high. To address this, a National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship will be introduced. The selection of students will be through a national test for students who have passed Class VIII. Each student will be given Rs 6,000 per year, and 100,000 scholarships will be awarded every year. A corpus fund of Rs 750 crore will be created this year, and augmented by a similar amount annually over the next three years.

5) Drinking water and sanitation: Some 55,512 habitations and

34,000 schools have been provided drinking water till December 2006, under the Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission. More ambitious targets have been set for 2007-08 to deal with both non-coverage and slippage. Out of 1.43 million rural habitations in the country, 1.40 million habitations have now access to safe drinking water. Special efforts are being made for ensuring sustainability of the facilities provided under the

Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme by initiating action to institutionalise community based rural water supply programme. Allocation for the Mission has been enhanced from Rs 4,680 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 5,850 crore in 2007-08. For the Total Sanitation Campaign, the allocation has gone up from Rs 720 crore to Rs 954 crore.

6) National Rural Health Mission (NRHM): All districts had to

complete preparation of their District Health Action Plans by March 2007. There is to be a major emphasis on mother and child care and on prevention and treatment of communicable diseases. Convergence is sought to be achieved among various programmes such as immunisation, antenatal care, nutrition and sanitation through Monthly Health Days (MHD) organised at anganwadi centres. So far, 320,000 Associated Social Health Activists (ASHAs) have been recruited and more than 200,000 have been given orientation training. Already 90,000 link workers have been selected by the states. AYUSH (alternative) systems are being mainstreamed into the health delivery system at all levels. Allocation for the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has been increased from Rs 8,207 crore to Rs 9,947 crore.

7) HIV/AIDS: NACP-III (third National AIDS Control Programme)

will start in 2007-08, to target high-risk groups. Access to condoms is to be expanded and universal access to blood screening and safe blood is to be ensured. More hospitals are to provide treatment to prevent transmission of HIV/AIDS from mother to child. Provision for the AIDS control programme will be Rs 969 crore.

8) Polio: the polio-eradication strategy is to be revised since the

outbreak of polio in Uttar Pradesh last year was a setback. Thus the number of polio rounds will be increased and the monovalent vaccine introduced with intensive coverage in 20 high-risk districts of Uttar Pradesh and 10 districts of Bihar. The programme has been integrated into the NRHM. ASHAs and anganwadi workers will visit every household and track down every child for the immunisation programme. To achieve the goal of eliminating polio, a provision of Rs 1,290 crore has been made for 2007-08.

9) National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS): it is

now the single wage employment programme being implemented at the district/block level throughout the country with focus on areas suffering from endemic labour exodus. The objective of the EAS is to provide gainful employment in manual work to all needy able bodied adults in rural areas during the lean agricultural season and the creation of community, social and economic assets for sustained employment and development. The EAS would be open to all adult rural poor. A maximum of two adults per family would be provided wage employment, subject to availability of funds. Allocation for the NREGS is Rs 12,000 crore, but since it is a demand-driven scheme the budget will be supplemented as required. The scheme has been expanded to cover 330 districts. An additional amount of Rs 2,800 crore has been provided for the Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana in districts not covered by the NREGS.

10) Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY): it aims at

establishing a large number of micro-enterprises in the rural areas. Persons assisted under this programme will be known as Swarozgaris and not beneficiaries. A significant aspect of SGSY is that every family assisted under this programme will be brought above the poverty-line

in three years and as such the programme aims at creating substantial additional incomes for the rural poor. It is proposed to cover 30 per cent of the rural poor in each block in the next five years.

11) Indira Awaas Yojana aims at helping rural people below poverty-

line belonging to SCs/STs, freed bonded labourers and non-SC/ST categories in construction of dwelling units and upgradation of existing unserviceable kutcha houses by providing grant-in aid. From 1995-96, the IAY benefits have been extended to widows or next-of kin of defence personnel killed in action.

Benefits have also been extended to ex-servicemen and retired members of the paramilitary forces as long as they fulfil the normal eligibility conditions of Indira Awaas Yojana. Three percent of funds are reserved for the disabled persons living below the poverty-line in rural areas.

12) Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SC/STs): Allocation of

Rs 3,271 crore has been made for schemes benefiting only SCs and STs, and Rs 17,691 crore for schemes with at least 20% of benefits earmarked for SCs and STs.

13) Agriculture: taking into account all the significant factors that

affect growth, the 11th Five Year Plan has assessed that agriculture is at the base of rural development and that it needs to growth at 4% per annum. The main factors expected to contribute to the growth are increased investment (2.5%) and higher area under fruits and vegetables (1.0%), with greater use of fertilisers and other inputs contributing the rest. The most significant factor will need to be public investment, including on filling yield gaps. This requires that public investment increases at a minimum of 12% per annum in real terms from its 2006-07 level. This is, however, only a necessary condition and longer-run issues should be addressed; the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has been asked to augment its resources for refinancing rural credit cooperatives and the Insurance for rural landless households (a scheme called the Aam Admi Bima Yojana) is to be introduced to provide death and disability insurance cover to rural landless households.

The Ministry lays great emphasis on monitoring and evaluation of rural infrastructure development programmes in general and poverty alleviation and employment generation schemes in particular.

The comprehensive system of monitoring and evaluation includes various mechanisms such as Progress Reports, Financial Returns, Audit Reports, Intensive inspections by officers of both Central government and the State governments, Area Officers Scheme, Review by various Committees, namely Parliament Committees as well as Standing Parliamentary Committee and Concurrent Evaluation Reports and impact research studies of the programmes of the Ministry.

The Monitoring Division has introduced a high tech review system through the Video-conference as an instrument to monitor the implementation of the programmes. A Home Page regarding the details of programmes of the Ministry has been put on internet so that transparency is ensured to the programmes.

The State governments have been directed to constitute Vigilance and Monitoring Committees at the district, block and village levels to monitor the implementation of the programmes. A schedule of inspection prescribing minimum field visits for each functionary at the supervisory level from the

State government to the block is drawn up and strictly adhered to. Review Committee at Central/State/District/Block and Village level undertake detailed review of the overall performance of the rural development programmes.

2.8 Rural Development Initiatives by the Corporate Sector and