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· Land Reforms
Two Centrally Sponsored Schemes viz;
- Computerization of Land Records (CLR) and
- Strengthening of Revenue Administration and Updating of Land Records (SRA & ULR) are administrated by Land Reforms Division in the Department of Land Resources
1. Computerization Of Land Records
The Centrally Sponsored Scheme on Computerization of Land Records (CLR) was started in 1988-89 with 100 per cent financial assistance on a pilot project basis in eight Districts viz.; Rangareddy (A.P.), Sonitpur (Assam), Singhbhum (Jharkhand), Gandhinagar (Gujarat), Morena (M.P.) Wardha (Maharastra), Mayurbhanj (Orissa) and Dungarpur (Rajasthan) to remove the problems inherent in the manual systems of maintenance and updating of land records and to meet the requirements of various groups of users.
It was decided that efforts should be made to computerize CORE DATA contained in land records, so as to assist development planning and to make records accessible to peoples/ planners and administrators.
During the 8 Five-Year Plan, the scheme was approved as a separate Centrally sponsored scheme on computerisation of land records. The total expenditure under the Scheme during 8-plan period was Rs. 59.42 crore. During 9 Five Year Plan, Ministry of Rural Development released a sum of Rs. 169.13 crore by covering 259 more districts under the Scheme. At present, the Scheme is being implemented in 582 Districts of the country leaving those Districts where there are no proper land records.
A decision has been taken during 1997-98 for operation of the Scheme at the tehsil/taluk level for facilitating delivery of computerized land records to users and public at large. Under this programme, funds are released to the State Governments for data entry work, setting up of computer centers at tehsil level, sub-division level, District Land Records Data Center and Monitoring Cell at state headquarter and imparting training to revenue officials on application software and computer technology. So far 3519 tehsils/taluks, 365 District Land Records Data Center, 1019 Sub-division and 16 monitoring cells have been covered under the programme of CLR. Since inception of the Scheme of CLR (1988-89), Rs. 445.38 crore has been released to the States/UTs, out of which Rs.266.23 crore has been reported utilised by the State/UTs.
· Strengthening Of Revenue Administration And Updating Of Land Records(SRA & ULR)
With a view to assist States/UTs in the task of updating of land records, a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Strengthening of Revenue Administration and Updating of Land Records (SRA & ULR) was started in 1987. Initially, the Scheme was approved for the States of Bihar and Orissa in 1987-88 and extended to other States/UTs, during 1989-90. State governments through their revenue/land reforms departments are implementing the Scheme. The Centre and the state on 50:50 funds sharing basis finance it. However, union territories are provided full Central assistance.
Under this Scheme, financial assistance is given for purchase of modern survey equipment like Global Positioning System (GPS), EDM, Total Stations, Theodolites, Work Stations, Aerial Survey, Office equipment like photocopiers, laminating machines, binding machines and basic facilities to improve work efficiency of subordinate level staff of the revenue departments, construction of office-cum-residence of patwaries, construction/repair/renovation of Training Institutes and equipment for training, etc.
Since inception of the scheme, financial assistance of Rs. 324.89 crore has been provided to state governments and UTs up to 31 March 2006 towards central share under the scheme. The utilization of the funds reported by the States/UTs is Rs. 232.81 crore which is approximately 72 per cent of total funds released.
· Rural Drinking Water Supply Programme
Clean drinking water is a basic necessity of life. Supply of clean drinking water in the rural areas has always been one of the highest priorities of the government. A Technology Mission on drinking water named “National Drinking Water Mission” (NDWM) was launched in 1986, which subsequently was rechristened as “Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission” (RGNDWM) in 1991 with three key objectives:
- Providing safe drinking water to all villages,
- Assisting local communities to maintain sources of safe drinking water in good condition, and
- Giving special attention for water supply to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
To achieve the objectives, Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP) is being implemented to resolve the drinking water problem in rural habitations. The Central Government supplements the efforts of the states by providing financial and technical support. The Tenth Plan emphasizes participatory approach where PRIs should be the key institutions for convergence of drinking water supply programmes at the ground level.
The strategy to achieve the Tenth Plan objectives can be briefly summarized as:
- Accelerating coverage of the remaining Not Covered and Partially Covered habitations including those slipped back from fully covered to partially and not covered categories, with safe drinking water systems.
- To tackle problems of water quality in affected habitations and to institutionalize water quality monitoring and surveillance systems.
- To promote sustainability, both of systems and sources, to ensure continued supply of safe drinking water in covered habitations
Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP) aims at achieving this objective. Considerable success has been achieved in meeting the drinking water needs of the rural population through the said scheme. There are more than 4 million hand pumps and 2 lakh piped water schemes in the rural areas.
The ARWSP was launched during 1972-73. It is currently being implemented through the Rajeev Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission. The scheme aims at coverage of all rural habitations with population of 100 and above, specially the un-reached ones, ensure sustainability of the systems and sources, tackle the problem of water quality and institutionalize water quality monitoring and surveillance through a Catchment Area Approach.
As on 1 April 2005, 96.13 per cent of rural habitations have been Fully Covered (FC) with drinking water facilities and 3.55 per cent are Partially Covered (PC) and 0.32 per cent are Not Covered (NC) with drinking water facilities. There are slippages of FC into NC or PC due to various factors such as lowering of ground water table, systems outliving their lives, increase in population, etc.
Drinking water supply is one of the six components of Bharat Nirman, which has been envisaged to build strong rural infrastructure in four years (2005-06 to 2008-09). The task ahead is to cover all the remaining uncovered habitations and also to cover the slipped back as well as the water quality affected ones. Action Plans from State/UT Governments for achieving the goals of Bharat Nirman in a time bound manner have been obtained.
For ensuring sustainability of the systems, steps were initiated in 1999 to institutionalize community participation in the implementation of rural drinking water supply schemes by incorporating the following three basic principles:
- Adoption of a demand-driven responsive and adaptable approach based on empowerment of villagers to ensure their full participation in the project through a decision making role in the choice of scheme design, control of finances and management arrangements.
- Increasing role of government for empowering user groups/gram panchayats for sustainable management of drinking water assets and integrated water management and conservation.
- Partial capital cost sharing either in cash or kind or both and 100 per cent responsibility of Operation and Maintenance by end-users.
Sector Reforms Projects, based on the above principles were sanctioned in 67 districts on pilot basis. With the experience gained from these pilot projects, reform process has been scaled up in the entire country through Swajaldhara launched on 25 December 2002. A notable feature of Swajaldhara is involvement of Village Water and Sanitation Committee (VWSC)/Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in planning, implementation, operation and maintenance. This would in turn ensure sustainability of the system. The community makes 10 per cent contribution and 90 per cent funds are provided by the Central government. In case of SC and ST habitations, community contribution can be in the form of cash, kind, labour or land or a combination of these.
Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission (RGNDWM) adopts an integrated approach so that conservation and augmentation of water sources is interrelated with rural water supply schemes to provide sustainable supply of safe drinking water to the rural population. The Mission seeks to provide supply of 40 litres of safe drinking water in rural areas.
An initiative has been taken by Government of India in February 2006 by launching the National Rural Drinking Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Programme which envisages institutionalization of community participation for monitoring and surveillance of drinking water sources at the grass-root level by Gram Panchayats and Village Water and Sanitation Committees, followed by checking the positively tested samples at the district and State level laboratories.
Another initiative taken by the Government is that from 2006-07 onwards focussed funding to tackle drinking water has been started. Up to 20 per cent of ARWSP funds are to be earmarked separately for tackling water quality problems. For 2006-07, 20 per cent of ARWSP funds have been allocated for funding under water quality.
· Central Rural Sanitation Programme
Rural Sanitation is a State subject. The efforts of the states are supplemented by the Central Government through technical and financial assistance under the Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP).
The Programme was launched in 1986 with the objectives of improving the quality of life of rural people and providing privacy and dignity to women. The concept of sanitation was expanded in 1993 to include personal hygiene, home sanitation, sage water and disposal of garbage, human excreta and wastewater. The components of the programme included construction of individual sanitary toilets for household below poverty-line (BPL), conversion of dry latrines to water-pour flush toilets, construction of village sanitary complexes for women, setting up of sanitary marts and production centres, intensive campaign for creating awareness and health education, etc.
Keeping in view the experiences of the Central and state governments, NGOs and other implementing agencies and the recommendations of the Second National Seminar on Rural Sanitation, the strategy for the Ninth Five Year Plan was revised and the programme was restructured form 1 April 1999. The restructured programme moves away form the principle of state-wise allocation of funds, primarily based on poverty criteria, to a demand driven approach in a phased manner.
Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) was introduced and the Allocation Based Programme was phased out by 31 March 2002. TSC is community-led and people-centered. There was a shift from a high subsidy to a low subsidy regime. The TSC approach emphasized awareness-building component and meets the demand through alternate delivery mechanism. School Sanitation has been introduced as a major component to encourage wider acceptance of sanitation among rural masses. The States/UTs are required to formulate project proposals under the TSC in order to claim Central government assistance.
Under the TSC, so far 559 projects in 30 States/UTs have been sanctioned with the total project outlay of about Rs.6240.27 crore. The Central, State and Beneficiary/Panchayat contributions are about Rs.3675.38 crore, Rs.1424.09 crore and Rs.1140.80 crore respectively. The components sanctioned in the 559 projects are
- Construction of 499 lakh individual household latrines
- 656690 toilets for Schools
- 36098 Community Sanitary Complexes
- 199033 toilets for Balwadis/ Anganwadis and
- 4030 Rural Sanitary Marts/ Production Centres.
Besides, funds have been earmarked for start-up activities, Information, Education and Communication (IEC) and Administrative charges. The total numbers of household toilets constructed up to 2005-06 are 14,48,1807.
To add vigour to the implementation of TSC Government of India has separately launched an award scheme ‘Nirmal Gram Puraskar’(NGP) for fully sanitised and open defecation free GramPanchayats, block and districts. In the first year of its institution only 40 PRIs were awarded NGP on 24 February 2005. In the second year the number of awarded PRIs/Blocks and organisation have increased to 772. His Excellency, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, President of India, distributed the Awards on 23 March 2006.
· Monitoring and Evalution
The Ministry of Rural Development lays great emphasis on monitoring and evaluation of all rural development programmes in general and poverty alleviation and employment generation schemes in particular, being implemented in various States/UTs.It is well recognised that the success of the programmes largely depends on the effective delivery system and efficient implementation at the grass-roots level so that the programme benefits reach the rural poor in full measures. In order to ensure this, the Ministry has evolved a comprehensive multi-level and multi tool system of Monitoring and Evaluation for the implementation of its programmes. The Monitoring mechanism includes, inter-alia, the Performance Review Committee, Review meetings by the Minister of Rural Development and Ministers of State with the Chief Ministers/ Ministers of Rural development and Officers of the States, the Area Officer Scheme, periodic progress reports, audit and utilisation certificates, video conferencing and field visits. The Ministry conducts quick evaluation/concurrent evaluation of all major programmes. Impact assessment studies to asses the overall impact of programmes of village-level are also conducted in selected district. The Vigilance and Monitoring Committees at State and District Levels in all States/UTs to monitor the implementation of programmes and introduce greater transparency in the process. These Committees inter-alia include MPs/ MLAs representatives of Panchayti Raj Institutions and NGOs. The Members of Parliament both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have been assigned a Central role in the reconstituted V&M Committees and they have been nominated Chairman/Co-Chairman of the district level V&M Committees.
The Ministry has also taken initiatives to strengthen the monitoring mechanism and quality of implementation of programmes by introducing District Level Monitoring (DLM) System in 130 district of 27 States through external agencies which include monthly reporting of physical and financial performance, qualitative reporting about policy and implementation environments in the district and physical verification of the assets crated under various programmes of the Ministry. Similarly DLM of Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) and Swajaldhara is implemented in 398 districts of the country w.e.f. 1 July 2005 This system aims at providing continuous, transparent and accountable monitoring inputs in reporting format with the objectives of reporting of the process and progress of the programmes covering different components of the programmes. It also aims at identification of gaps in the implementation at the village, block, district and state level. The monitoring system also elicits the stakeholders’ views; assesses the institutional issues and document case studies and success stories on best practices, innovations and lesson learned.
In order to strengthen the monitoring mechanism, the Ministry has a panel of about 300 National Level Monitors comprising retired servicemen and Retired Civil Servants to monitor and furnish periodic reports to the Ministry on the implementation of programmes in selected districts including verifying facts of the cases and complaints if any, which may be referred to them.
The Union Government in recent years has given emphasis to e-governance in all possible areas. Accordingly, the Ministry of Rural Development has also initiated action with the state Governments and UTs to ensure that information and progress reports completed by Districts Rural Development Agencies DRDAs are sent through the electronic medium. About 400 (DRDAs) have started sending their reports through online. Efforts are being made in this direction to obtain online progress reports from all the remaining DRDAs.
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