A five-pronged strategy has been mooted to check corruption and prevent diversion of funds meant for implementation of rural development schemes in the country. Union Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who is on a two-day visit to northeastern states to take stock of status of Centrally-funded development schemes being implemented in the region, on Wednesday said, “Awareness, people’s participation, transparency, vigilance and monitoring and accountability combined can check corruption and prevent diversion of funds.” He said the people as a whole and the conscious section of the society in particular, should avail of the Right to Information Act to keep a check on status of implementation rural development schemes like National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), Total Sanitation Campaign, PMGSY, SGSY, IAY, SGRY.

He, however, denied allegation of diversion of rural development funds in some of the northeastern states saying that it was not possible because of strict monitoring by his ministry. The minister informed that insurgency has affected implementation of rural development schemes especially those where contractors’ involvement is required, in some areas of the NE such as Manipur and remote hill areas of Assam.

“It is not a phenomenon confined only to NE states. It is also there in other parts of the country including Bihar where contractors are under pressure from mafias,” Mr Prasad said.

However, employment generation schemes are not at all affected by the militancy in the North East, the area where the Centre has accorded highest priority. The minister stated that the NE states must improve their performance in implementation of rural development schemes. He, however, lauded performance of Tripura and Sikkim in implementation of Total Sanitation Programme. Sikkim will attain total sanitation goal by the end of this year.

The Union Minister was dissatisfied with the role played by nationalised banks in helping the Government to achieve rural development goals. “Total 118 blocks in the N-E are without a bank branch while 149 bank branches in rural Assam are operating at zero landing rate. This appalling, I am going to take it up with the Reserve Bank of India and the Union Finance Ministry,” he pledged. Out of those 118 unbanked blocks in the region, 41 are in Arunachal Pradesh, 21 in Nagaland, 26 in Manipur, 15 in Sikkim, 10 in Tripura, two in Mizoram and one in Assam.

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