A rampant complaint in our State is that there is some big snag in effective implementation of Centre’s developmental schemes in rural areas. The coalition Government vexed eloquent about bringing developmental schemes right to the rural areas but the ground situation indicates that this is only a loud claim minus practicality. A State Level Vigilance and Monitoring Committee was constituted albeit on the insistence of the Union Government which would regularly monitor the progress of central schemes floated in the rural areas of the State. We learn that for ensuring effective supervision, vigilance and monitoring of various programmes meant for development of rural areas and improving socio-economic condition of rural population, the Union Ministry of Rural Development issued guidelines for strict compliance by all the States several years back. But the irony is that this monitoring mechanism has not delivered the goods so far and remains only in papers and not on ground. The guidelines also suggested that such a committee would monitor the flow of funds through various channels including allocations, releases, utilization and unspent balances. One Member of Rajya Sabha and four Members of Lok Sabha from Jammu and Kashmir besides five Members of Legislative Assembly and some non-official persons were made members of the committee. In its first meeting held in November 2016 the Committee decided that comments will be invited from all the members of the committee as well as officers of the concerned departments about status of the implementation of schemes, hurdles if any and relaxations in the guidelines required to be proposed to the Union Government keeping in view the topography of Jammu and Kashmir. Five months have elapsed and the comments have not been submitted to the Committee. Nobody is serious about monitoring the progress of the schemes floated under Centre’s sponsorship. This is a serious matter and the Government shall have to ensure that all Centrally sponsored developmental schemes are implemented within a time frame if the State is to benefit from the vast developmental schemes floated by the Centre from time to time.
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