Rural Development ministry to review performance

New Delhi, Mar 15: The third meeting of the Performance Review Committee of the Ministry of Rural Development for the year 2009-10 will be held here on March 17-18.

Over the two days, the Performance Review Committee will take stock of the progress under the various schemes of the ministry, a release informed on Monday.

The performance under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the preparations for BPL Census would be discussed on the first day.

Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) would be taken up for review on Thursday, the second day of the meet.

The progress of training programs of the ministry and the status of Vigilance and Monitoring Committees is on the agenda as well, the release added.

During the financial year 2009-10, up to January 2010, under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, 4.61 crore households have been provided employment.

Rajasthan leads the pack with 62.16 lakh households being provided jobs while Andhra Pradesh follows next with 56.55 lakh households.

The Ministry of Rural Development has so far spent Rs 29501.5 crores, till January 2010, which amounts to 69.5 per cent of the expenditure as against the total available funds.

During the same period, the expenditure on wages and material components has been around 68 per cent and 27 per cent respectively.

It has generated 22663.5 lakh person days of employment. The average person days per household is around 49 per cent while 3916005 households have availed of 100 days of employment so far under the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA.

The participation of Scheduled castes, Scheduled tribes has been around 30 per cent and 22 per cent respectively while the women's contribution has been around 49 per cent.

This is the third meeting of the Performance Review Committee of the Ministry for the financial year 2009-10.

Earlier two meetings took place on June 11, 2009, and October 8, 2009, wherein it emerged that the broad areas where improvements can be achieved are job card issuing process, expansion of the basket of works, wage payment mechanism, vigilance and social audit, convergence and special attention to North Eastern states.

The Performance Review Committee Meetings over the years have been an important monitoring tool for the Ministry of Rural Development to take stock of the progress of the various flagship programs running all over the country.

The participants include among others the secretaries and representatives from all state governments / UT Administrations overseeing the implementation of Rural Development Programs, Organizations like CAPART, NIRD along with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, Ministry of Finance, Planning Commission representatives.