Volume 27 - Issue 20 :: Sep. 25-Oct. 08, 2010
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU
FOCUS: GUNTUR DISTRICT
Empowerment guaranteed
T. VIJAYAKUMAR
District Collector B.Ramanjaneyulu clearing a piece of fallow land at
Madipadu village while launching the Kshetra Darshini project.
THE Kshetra Darshini project of the State government promises to usher
in a mini Green Revolution in the parched, naxal-dominated areas of
Palnadu. A joint effort of the departments of Horticulture,
Agriculture, Social Forestry and the District Rural Development
Agency, the project seeks to make fallow lands in Guntur district
cultivable and empower landless Dalits in the process. It is a
component of Indira Prabha, or the Comprehensive Land Development
Project (CLDP), under the aegis of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
"About 3,000 landless Dalits are being given title deeds for 6,935
acres of assigned, fallow lands. This is the biggest project in the
history of the district to develop fallow lands," District Collector
B. Ramanjaneyulu told Frontline. The Collector's sanction for the
project was announced at a public meeting in Madipadu on February 23,
where 149 beneficiaries were given ownership deeds for land measuring
324.35 acres in all.
The district administration had also released a schedule for
completion of the project by the third week of August, and this has
been accomplished. Forest clearance, removal of boulders, ploughing,
digging of farm ponds and borewells and electrification were completed
by April. Personnel from the departments of Horticulture and
Agriculture trained the people in sowing and cultivating crops by
adopting water conservation methods.
The District Water Management Agency (DWMA), which was the nodal
agency for implementation, had selected the most backward mandals in
the district – Atchampet, Vinukonda, Durgi and Bollapalli – for the
project.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the landless Dalits. The
government would bear the entire cost of the project – from clearing
the land to the beneficiary getting the first produce," said Y.D
Yugandhar, Project Director, DWMA.
The DWMA, Guntur is implementing three programmes – the MGNREGS, the
CLDP and watershed projects.
The MGNREGS was launched on April 1, 2007, in 57 mandals of Guntur
district. The works are being taken up in a project mode. The total
number of job cards are 5,47,891. The average number of days of
employment provided for a household is 20.93 and the average wage rate
per person per day is Rs.107.46 As many as 1,797 households got work
for 100 days.
The watershed programme was started in 2001-02. As many as 71
watersheds were sanctioned to Guntur district. The CLDP was launched
in Sarikondapalem village in Bollapalli mandal in November 2004. This
programme, funded by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural
Development (NABARD), is to be implemented in three phases.
P. Samuel Jonathan
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