The Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has proposed to hike the fund allocation to Rs.20 lakh from the present Rs.10 lakh for each village covered under the Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY) aimed at the integrated development of villages with more than 50 per cent Scheduled Castes (SC) population.
The Ministry has already approached the Prime Minister with this proposal and he has assured to give a favourable consideration to the same, Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment D. Napoleon told The Hindu here on Tuesday.
The PMAGY aims to achieve all-round, integrated development of selected villages primarily through convergent implementation of all relevant Central and State schemes in them. The Central assistance is to the tune of Rs.10 lakh per village.
The implementation of the pilot scheme was approved in March this year for integrated development of 1,000 of the 44,000 villages in which a majority of the population belongs to the Scheduled Castes. “We have appealed to the Prime Minister to hike the Central allocation to Rs.20 lakh each village from next year,” Mr. Napoleon said. The Ministry on a trial basis selected five States — Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Assam — for the implementation of this programme in a phased manner. The respective State governments are in charge of identification of the villages. In Tamil Nadu, 225 villages have been identified in two districts — 148 in Tiruvarur district and 77 in Cuddalore district.
Complete proposals have already been received from Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Rajasthan and Assam and the project is under various stages of implementation in these States.
