NREGS to be implemented in Mission Mode: Raghuvansh

New Delhi, Mar 30 (UNI) The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme would be implemented in Mission Mode by improving social audit and increasing awareness about the scheme to enhance peoples participation, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said today.

He said the suggestion for implementing NREGS in Mission Mode had come from UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and deliberated at the National Employment Guarantee Council meeting today where it was felt that there was the need for more transparency, peoples participation, awareness and social audit of the unique job guarantee scheme.

The scheme, which is already being implemented in 200 districts, would now be extended to 113 districts from April 1. The scheme, which was to be extened to 130 new districts under the budget for 2006-07, could not be implemented in districts of Uttar Pradesh due to assembly polls, he pointed out.

He said funds allocated for the rural development schemes have been fully released by the Centre to states and during the first year of the eleventh five year plan the allocation for rural development had increased by 32.5 per cent and reached Rs 41000 crore. He said all out efforts were being made to provide financial assistance to states to improve the condition of the people.

The government is also planning to launch a National Land Resource Management Programme under which updating of land records would be done by computerising and digital mapping, he informed.

He said soon a pilot project would be launched to computerise the land records and during the next five years all the land records in the entire country would be computerised and digitised.

Under the programme, the spatial data from NRSA, spatial data of the Surveys of India and Forest Survey of India and Terrestrial maps with tehsildars would be integrated and made deliverable so that citizens could get service from these data. It would be citizen focused and act as tool and input for development planning which could be made available to various other ministries and agencies for implementing their projects.

Dr Singh also gave a detailed account of the financial performance of his Ministry in various programmes for rural development.

UNI