Centre launches two new schemes for rural poor from Kerala

The centre has launched two new rural development schemes from the Thrissur district of Kerala aimed at helping the women working in farm sector through the intervention and integration of other such schemes. The second scheme launched from Thrissur and Malapuram districts is rechristened as new PURA( Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas), which is aimed at creating physical infrastructure in rural areas of the country in the Public-Private Partnership mode. Launching both the schemes, the Union Minister of Rural Development Sh Jairam Ramesh said here that the government is embarking on a very important journey by launching the two national projects, whose results will be visible to the common man in the coming three to four years. The first project called Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Yojana has two components with a budgetary provision of Rs 80 crore each and is designed for improving the economic status of about three lakh women workers in the state of Kerala. The scheme will be launched in the entire country based on the feedbacks as is being done in the case of Kutumbshri scheme, which is highly successful in Kerala and other states are demanding for replicating the same self-help group model. Responding to the queries of the Kerala Chief Minister that timing for MGNREGA scheme for women workers should be fixed from 9.AM to 4. PM, Shri Ramesh assured that the Centre will seriously look into the matter as the women have other family responsibilities also. He also informed the Chief Minister, present on the occasion that dairy related works will be included in the MGNREGA from 1st of April this year as an expert committee has recommended the same in this regard. It is pertinent to mention here that women constitute more than 90 percent of the all MGNREGA workers in the state.

Launching the PURA project from the Thrissur and Malapuram districts of Kerala, the Rural Development Minister said this is different from the PURA conceived by the former President Dr A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, as the new project deals with water supply, sanitation and improvement of roads as key focus areas and is not related to the Knowledge connectivity idea of Dr Kalam. Moreover, under this all central government schemes will be integrated under the Gram Panchayat as nodal agency and there will be Public-private partnership between the Central Government, State Government and the private players to build and improve upon the physical infrastructure. Shri Ramesh said, initially there will be eight PURA projects in the country which can be extended to 500 centres known as census towns (semi-urban & semi-rural) as the latest census talks about over 3500 such areas in the country.