Himachal Pradesh Government has earmarked 15 percent of its Plan Outlay under thirteen heads of development to be spent on 551 backward gram panchayats for their accelerated development. This was revealed by Virbhadra Singh, Chief Minister while addressing the Members of Legislative Assembly of Kangra, Kullu, Hamirpur, Una, Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti districts in the State Planning Meeting convened for holding discussions for finalization of the 11th Five Year Plan and Annual Plan for the coming financial year here today.
- Government committed for accelerated development of backward Panchayats.
- Stress on according priority for preparation of DPRs.
Rural Sanitation Programme to be implemented vigorously.
Chief Minister said that concerted efforts were being made for the development of the backward gram panchayats in the state and provision of additional funds made under the Backward Area Sub-Plan (BASP). He said that out of the total 3,243 gram panchayats, 551 were declared backward keeping in view their backwardness in terms of development so that concerted efforts were made and additional budgetary provisions made to carry out development at a faster pace. He said that after the reorganization of the gram panchayats, 39 more were added to the list which raised the number of such panchayats to 551.
Virbhadra Singh said that at the recent meeting of the National Development Council, the Hon’ble Prime Minister had announced that special category states would revert back to the earlier formula of 90 percent grant in the case of externally aided projects. He said that the departments needed to take benefit of the formula and focus on additional resource mobilization through externally aided projects and concentrate on expanding coverage of centrally sponsored schemes so that additional funds were available for the developmental activities over and above the state Plan. He said that there was no dearth of funds under various central and external programmes which required to be taken benefit of by posing maximum number of projects under different programmes.
Chief Minister directed the authorities to accord top priority for preparation of the detailed project reports so that budgetary provisions were made for their implementation. He said that if required services of the other expert agencies could also be requisitioned to achieve the objective. He also directed the authorities to firmly check the mechanized mining in the rivers in critical areas and deal with them strictly. He said that only controlled and manual mining required to be permitted and no mining permitted in the areas of bridges, retaining walls, water supply and irrigation schemes. He also directed irrigation and public health department to take over the tubewell constructed by Agriculture department in Naked in Kangra area to supplement their water supply schemes.
Virbhadra Singh suggested that the Rural Sanitation Programme be launched vigorously and efforts made to provide ‘Sulabh Shouchalaya’ to every household to maintain hygienic conditions in the rural areas.
He announced that a Committee of Revenue, Forest, Finance and Planning Secretaries would be constituted to study the nautor cases of tribal people and added that MLAs from Tribal areas would be the members of the Committee. The Committee would submit its report within a month so that nautor cases of tribals could be decided, he added.
Sudhir Sharma, MLA Baijnath urged for renovation of bridges in his constituency, which would benefit people of the area, expediting road cases and requested for connectivity of the left out areas. He said that Forest Rest Houses should be clubbed with Tourism Rest Houses and developed from tourism point of view. He also urged for banning valley side construction on national and State Highways.
