Rs 70.6 cr from DFID for Bengal panchayats

West Bengal government's Panchayats and Rural Development Department has received £9 million (Rs 70.6 cr) from the Department for International Development (DFID) of United Kingdom (UK) for the first two years of the seven-year programme for 'strengthening rural decentralisation' (SRD).

Speaking at the formal launch of the programme, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, chief minister, West Bengal, said that this fiscal, the state government had allocated Rs 278 crore as untied funds to panchayat bodies with another corpus of Rs 254 crore for the maintenance works under the recommendations of the 12th Finance Commission, in response to the state government's success in panchayat and land reforms.

The chief minister said the state government had spent Rs 1200 crore in rural development last fiscal.

The target in the current fiscal was Rs 1500 crore, with all tiers of Panchayat bodies getting computerised systems and every gram panchayat an executive assistant.

"At the end of the first two years of the SRD programme, DFID will consider further support to the programme post a detailed review to allocate the remaining £130 million for the complete seven-year period", said Andrew Hall, British deputy high commissioner.

Similar grants were contemplated for states like Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh but West Bengal was unparalleled in its success of the land reforms and the restructuring of Panchayat bodies with the 1978 elections, Bhattacharjee claimed.

In the first phase, the programme would be launched in the six most backward districts Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Purulia and Birbhum selected on the criteria of human development indices, informed MN Roy, secretary of West Bengal's panchayats and rural development department.

The SRD programme has a separate internal and external monitoring system. Districts outside phase-I would benefit in terms of strategies, new systems, limited capacity building support, campaign and communication.

The second phase would commence in the third year, when SRD would cover six more districts, followed by another six in the fifth year.

The order would help backward districts receive the highest level of programme support for the longest period, Roy explained.

The chief minister pointed out that sustained rural development programmes had reduced the percentage of people below the poverty line from 73 per cent in 1973-74 to around 25 per cent at present.

West Bengal's health, and panchayat and rural development minister, Surjya Kanta Mishra, said Rs 72 crore had been received and the amount would be allocated in due course of time, but specific sectors were yet to be decided.