NEW DELHI: The Ministries of Human Resource Development (HRD), Rural Development and Panchayat Raj have joined hands under the ``Unnat Bharat programme’’ to connect knowledge institutions like schools and colleges and adopt village clusters with an aim to drive growth in rural areas.
As the agreement reached between the three ministries, the HRD ministry has been mandated to ensure that all higher educational institutions be encouraged to adopt a cluster of at least five panchayats, which in consultation with the district administration will to carry out detailed field study. For this purpose the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi will design and make available a suitable work flow driven internet enabled platform that can be used by all institutions to prepare plans and track progress for the next 10 years.
The HRD ministry is also sending a directive to higher education institutions to adopt villages, carry out field studies and devise a solution of problems faced by the rural population. The Central government would then utilize the field reports and solutions offered by these institutions in their policies for rural development, said an official.
According to an official, while few government and private educational institutions have been adopting villages and working for their development, now with the three ministries joining hands this is being viewed as a way to further facilitate and provide more insight, which would actually help in devising better policies to facilitate rural development, said an official. The programme is being implemented in 92 districts in Phase I.
Rural development that has been one of the focus areas for the government. Sumit Bose committee has recommended that the Cluster Facilitation Teams, which aid the scheme's implementation, should be strengthened to better capture the demand for work in panchayats. The suggestion seeks to recalibrate the job scheme instead of letting it follow a uniform approach irrespective of development gaps between regions, one of the areas which would be further streamlined under the ``Unnat Bharat programme’’, an official pointed out.