Question : Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan

(a) whether the Government has launched a scheme - Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan and if so, the details thereof;

(b) whether the Government has undertaken a Mission Antyodaya to bring one crore households out of poverty and make 50,000 Gram Panchayats poverty free and if so, the details thereof;

(c) whether there is an urgent need for implementation of e-governance in panchayats to make it transparent, accountable and effective institutions of self-governance and if so, the reaction of the Government in this regard; and

(d) the other corrective steps taken by the Government for strengthening the Panchayati Raj Institutions?

THE MINISTER OF PANCHAYATI RAJ
(SHRI NARENDRA SINGH TOMAR)

(a) Yes, Sir. In order to strengthen governance capabilities of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) to deliver on Sustainable Development Goals, the Government has launched the core Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (RGSA) which is being implemented for 4 years from 2018-19 to 2021-22 with total outlay of Rs.7255.50 crore. The scheme comprises Central share of Rs.4500 crore and State share of 2755.50 crore. The sharing ratio in respect of the State components for all States is in the proportion of 60:40 for Central and State share, except North East and Hill States where the sharing ratio is 90:10. In the case of Union Territories (UTs), the Central share is 100%.

(b) Yes, Sir. The Department of Rural Development has undertaken Mission Antyodaya, in which the State Governments have selected 50,000 Gram Panchayats (GPs) from around 5,000 clusters. In October 2017, ranking of these Gram Panchayats on parameters of pshysical infrastructure, human development and economic activities was done to facilitate identification of gaps in a quest for Poverty Free Gram Panchayats through convergent actions. The State Governments are advised that the State Action Plan in respect of Rural Development schemes be based upon the gap analysis of Mission Antyodaya Gram Panchayats so as to fill those gaps in saturation mode. The progress of Mission Antyodaya is monitored and is quantified both at the level of Households and Gram Panchayats to assess the change.
(c) Yes Sir. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) has been implementing e-Panchayat Mission Mode Project (MMP) under Digital India Programme that seeks to transform the functioning of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), making them more transparent, accountable and effective as units of decentralized local self-governments. Under e-Panchayat MMP, a suite of Core Common Software Applications, namely Panchayat Enterprise Suite (PES) has been developed to address various aspects of Panchayats’ functioning including planning, budgeting, implementation, accounting, monitoring, social audit and delivery of citizen services like issue of certificates, licences etc. The various applications under PES are listed at Annexure.

(d) MoPR has been providing programmatic support for strengthening of PRIs, advocacy support for inter-ministerial and multi-sectoral coordination and capacity building of Elected Representatives and functionaries of PRIs to improve their functioning and effectiveness. Under Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC), grants to the tune of Rs. 2,00,292 crore for the period from 2015 to 2020 have been allocated to Gram Panchayats (GPs) constituted under Part-IX of Constitution, for delivering basic services. Towards holistic development of GPs and to bring about convergence in the resources and activities, the GPs prepare Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP). The detailed guidelines for formulation of GPDP have been framed and provided by MoPR to the GPs. The MoPR rolled out People’s Plan Campaign ‘Sabki Yojana Sabka Vikas’ from 2nd October to 31st December, 2018 successfully for formulation of evidence based GPDP by the GPs.

*****