Kalam to give Nirmal Gram Puraskar to 770 Panchayats

New Delhi, Mar 21: President A P J Abdul Kalam would present Nirmal Gram Puraskar to 770 Panchayati Raj Institutions on March 23 to recognise the contribution made by them in the field of promoting rural sanitation coverage.

Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh told reporters here that the annual awards would be given to 761 Gram Panchayats and nine block panchayats from 14 states of the country to mark the birth anniversary of socialist leader Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh.

Four NGOs would also get the award on the recommendations of respective state governments. They are Ram Krishna Mission Lok Siksha Parishad, West Bengal; Appa Patwardhan Safai and Paryawaran Tantrankiketan of Pune in Maharashtra; Nirmal Gram Nirman Kendra of Nashik in Maharashtra and SCOPE, Trich in Tamil Nadu.

Mr Arun Kumar Vundavalli, MP from Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh would also be honoured by the President for contributing his MPLAD Fund for sanitation promotion in his constitutency, Mr Singh said.

The total award money for PRIs would be Rs 2060 lakh. Gram Panchayats would reaceive from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 4 lakh and for Panchayat Samiti, from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh, a memento and a certificate. The NGOs would get Rs 50,000 cash award, a memento and a citation.

Dr Singh said that the 770 PRIs were selected by a National Committee on Nirmal Gram Pursakar from entries received from 1600 PRIs from 16 states. These PRIs were selected on the criteria that they must be free from open defecation and all households should have access to sanitation facilities, all schools and anganwadis should have toilets, separate toilets for girls in co-educational schools and general cleanliness in the villages.

Maharashtra had the maximum of 381 PRIs selected for the award followed by West Bengal which had 134 PRIs and Tamil Nadu 119, the minister said.

770 PRIs being selected for the award compared to the mere 40 last year shows the great leap achieved by the state governments in this respect.

Fourteen states which have been selected for the award include Andhra Pradesh, Asom, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and West Bengal.

UNI