PM takes an audit of rural schemes

The government yesterday held a series of meetings to review its welfare schemes and programmes for rural areas.

While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reviewed rural employment, rural works, drinking water and other welfare programmes, finance ministry officials were closeted in meetings with Reserve Bank Governor YV Reddy, Nabard Chairperson Ranjana Kumar and Indian Banks' Association Chairman V Leeladhar, to work out a package of measures to raise the rural credit flow by 30 per cent during the financial year.

Singh yesterday held a series of meetings with senior officials from the Planning Commission and the ministries of rural development, small-scale industries, agriculture and labour.

He is scheduled to review the programmes of the ministry of food and agriculture on Friday. Nabard's Kumar also met the prime minister to discuss ways to augment credit flow to the rural and the agricultural sectors.

Officials who made presentations to the prime minister said the exercise was meant to familiarise Singh about the schemes and suggest structural adjustments in terms of the government's intent laid out in the United Progressive Alliance's common minimum programme.

"The exercise is meant to work out ways to improve the effectiveness of the schemes," said a secretary who made a presentation in the PMO.

Finance Secretary DC Gupta and the Planning Commission are undertaking a separate exercise to tailor the government's schemes on the lines of the CMP, officials said.

The departments are also making their demands for funds in the Budget separately.

The finance ministry is working out ways to increase the flow of credit to farmers and is considering restructuring loans and other measures to get the rural poor in the organised credit sector and wean them away from moneylenders.

In addition, a recapitalisation package for co-operative banks is also planned.

The ministry of small-scale industry and agro and rural industries is also working out a strategy to improve the effectiveness of schemes like the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojna and the Khadi & Village Industries' Commisison-operated Rural Employment Generation Plan.