From Our Correspondent
GUWAHJATI: Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said there was scope for better utilization of MGNREGA scheme by the states whom he asked to ensure regular payment of wages under the centrally-sponsored scheme.
Addressing Gramonnayan Sammelan here, Ramesh said “Instead of buying Scorpios and Boleros (SUVs), the MGNREGA money should be utilized for welfare of rural masses.
He said advocated delegation of more power to Gram Panchayats for better implementation of rural development schemes.
Ramesh lauded the women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in the country for their good work. He particularly praised women SHGs of Assam stating that performance-wise those were fast becoming at par with excellent job that was being done by their counter parts from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Assam has 10 per cent f the total women SHGs in the country.
The Union Rural Development Ministry has marked ‘rural drinking water and sanitation’ as the top priority area for the next financial year (2012-13) in order to increase the number of ‘Nirmal Gram’ in the country as much as possible.
Ramesh said, “The dream project of my ministry for the year 2012-13 will be to improve drinking water and sanitation facilities in rural India. I am sure the government will approve of the plan as it will be a key project to spur rural development.”
“Out of about 6 lakh villages in the country, only about 25,000 villages are bracketed as Nirmal Gram. It will be a big task for the Rural Development Ministry to provide drinking water and sanitation in the rest of the villages throughout the country,” Ramesh said while calling upon the state governments to chip in to create more Nirmal Grams.
Everyday, an estimated 1,000 Indian children under five die because of diarrhea, a preventable disease due to the sanitation crisis in rural India.
Sanitation related illnesses in both children and adults drain productivity and income, ultimately perpetuating poverty.
India’s first national program to increase access to rural sanitation at scale, the Central Rural Sanitation Program, was launched in 1986. The CRSP focused on one kind of technology – pour flush toilets – and provided subsidies to generate demand for sanitation.
This approach failed because people defecate in the open not because they can’t afford a toilet without subsidy but because safe sanitation is not a felt need.
Subsequent ‘Total Sanitation Campaign’, concentrates on promoting behaviour change by the community, as against the toilet construction focused approach of earlier programs. As a result rural sanitation coverage improved from less than 20 per cent in 2001 to nearly 57 per cent in 2009.