Shri Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu was born on 1st July, 1949 in Chavatapalem, a remote village in the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh. His parents, Late Shri Rangaiah Naidu and Smt. Ramanamma were agriculturists. After graduating from V.R College, Nellore, he obtained the law degree from the Andhra University, Visakhapatnam. Shri Naidu was married to Smt. Usha on 14th April, 1971 and is blessed with a daughter and a son.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Sri M. Venkaiah Naidu, Major Initiatives as Minister of Rural Development, Government of India

As the Minister of Rural Development, Government of India, Shri Venkaiah Naidu was instrumental in launching of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), an ambitious programme seeking to provide connectivity to over 1,60,000 habitations in the rural areas with all-weather roads of a high quality, involving an outlay of about Rs. 60,000 Crores. Within a short span of 17 months, over 7000 roads were completed and projects costing over Rs. 7,500 Crores, were sanctioned. The programme seeks to cover all the unconnected habitations in the country by the year 2007. The PMGSY programme has ushered in an era of scientific approach, provision of high technological inputs and meticulous planning in the realm of rural roads. A national workshop on rural roads was also organized at New Delhi by the Ministry, in collaboration with the World Bank, in January 2002.

In order to meet the exigencies arising out of natural calamities, Shri Venkaiah Naidu initiated the Food for Work Programme (FWP), which was innovative and effective in tackling the adverse fall out of calamities. The FWP was implemented from January 2001 to March 2002, whereby 40 Lakh tonnes of food grains, costing about Rs. 4,000 Crores, was supplied to the affected states, free of cost. In pursuance of the assurance of the Hon'ble Prime Minister on the Independence Day, 2001, the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY), was launched in September 2001. As a result, an additional Rs. 500 Crores as cash component and 34 Lakh Tonnes of food grains costing about Rs. 3,400 Crores was released to the states. In addition, a special component package of 18,11,500 tonnes was also released to the states.

Employment being a major factor in poverty alleviation, it was a thrust area in Shri Venkaiah Naidu's priorities for rural development. The Swarnajayanthi Gram Swarazogar Yojana (SGSY), which is the single largest self employment scheme, was given a major fillip. Vigorous efforts were made convert SGSY into a national movement and to facilitate creation of atleast one self help group in each of the country's 14 Lakh habitations. It is a matter of satisfaction that almost 9 Lakh groups have already been created. Further, with a view to give a major thrust to employment generation, a new comprehensive scheme called the Jaya Prakash Rozgar Guarantee Yojana was formulated by the Ministry. The strengthening of the Panchayat Raj system, with particular emphasis on empowering the Gram Sabhas has received the necessary priority, keeping in view the spirit of the 73rd amendment of the Constitution providing for devolvement of powers to the Panchayats. A national conference of the Panchayat Adyakshas was held in April 2002, which adopted a national declaration for implementation of the amendment. The Housing Sector received detailed attention and for the purpose of convenience and simplicity, the existing schemes for rural housing were proposed to be merged in the Kendriya Grameen Awas Yojana with effect from 2002-003.

It is matter of deep concern that even after 5 decades of independence, several thousands of villages have been languishing due to lack of sufficient and good quality drinking water and absence of proper sanitary conditions. In order to remedy the situation , Shri Venkaiah Naidu, directed the efforts of the Department of Drinking Water Supply towards accentuation of provision of safe drinking water to the partially- covered and not-covered habitations. Over 67 districts have been covered under the Sector Reforms project, involving an outlay of Rs.2,060 Crores. The initiatives taken by Shri Naidu in this area have received international acclaim and it is indeed significant that he was invited to deliver the keynote address at the World Water Forum 2002, held at Washington in May 2002, under the auspices of the World Bank, attended by over 650 delegates representing 161 countries, the second highest ever gathering at a World Bank function. The delegates applauded the initiatives of India with a standing ovation. In order to cater to the needs for the calamity affected areas, 5% of the outlay for housing and water was earmarked for such contingent and emergent situations. The Total Sanitation Campaign, which aims at providing proper sanitation facilities, received a major fillip under the stewardship of Shri Naidu, with 185 project districts being taken up involving an outlay of Rs. 1,700 Crores.

In order to preserve, harness and conserve the precious natural resources, namely land and water and to promote overall agricultural development, the Watershed Development programme was accorded overriding priority by Shri Venkaiah Naidu, for ushering in rural prosperity. He was responsible for revision of the watershed guidelines whereby, a focused approach was given to the development of watersheds and cost per hectare was revised upwards from Rs. 4,000 to Rs. 6,000. It is no mean achievement that new projects covering more than 75 Lakh Hectares were sanctioned covering almost all the states and union territories. A programme for One- Time Desiltation of village ponds all over the country was taken up. The supplementary observation mechanism was introduced for effective monitoring of the projects. The farmers had always faced acute predicament due to absence of proper land records in the villages. Shri Naidu laid a significant thrust on computerization of land records and was instrumental in development of a model Pattadar Pass Book and model Legislation, which have been circulated to the states for further action. Implementation of this scheme is expected to go a long way in eliminating corruption and empowering the rural communities.

In order to bring about a proper check on the implementation of the rural development schemes, Shri Venkaiah Naidu firmly believed that the villager should have access to information and control over the activities. Accordingly, he developed a four pronged strategy, which was emphasised for effective implementation at the grass roots level, comprising of the following:
  • Awareness of the Schemes
  • Transparency
  • People's Participation
  • Accountability-through social audit by gram Sabha.
The vision of Shri Venkaiah Naidu, for bringing about the speedy development of rural areas and bridging the gap between the comparatively developed areas of the Urban India and the underdeveloped regions of the country represented by the Rural Bharat, extended beyond the Governmental initiative to the realm of the Private co-operation and their proactive involvement. Towards this end, several meetings and conferences were held, with the participation of the representatives of the industry from the FICCI, CII, ASSOCHAM etc., in different parts of the country and a significant impact was created for galvanizing the public-private sector initiative in promoting rural development.

Shri Venkaiah Naidu toured all parts of the country and personally oversaw the implementation of the programmes and reviewed their performance with the state governments from time to time, and was unsparing as regards deficiencies noted, which resulted in improvement of performance across the country, particularly in the north eastern states. He toured USA, Australia, Netherlands, France and Belgium to attend important conferences and to study the rural development initiatives which were relevant for our country. With development as the mantra and consensus as the approach, Shri Naidu strived to bring about speedy development of the rural areas and focus the attention of the country towards this sector which accounts for nearly 70% of the population.

No comments:

Followers

About Me

My photo
I am G. Naveen Kumar Goud, 21 years old, I have completed B. com from Osmania University. I am a Blogger and ad publisher. I do ad publishing on the web and blogging - info containing persons, businesses, products and services. I am a web designer and do freelance works of websites.....