NEW DELHI: The Rural Development Ministry launched the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan on April 14 for reaching out to the poor families in 21,058 villages with an array of central schemes.Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the campaign on Ambedkar Jayanyti from Bijapur, Chhattisgarh. “The government, through the project, aims to ensure that its welfare schemes reach all the beneficiaries and also include all the people who were deprived of the benefits,” a ministry official said. “We are launching this scheme with the sole intention of benefitting the people and not to use it as an election tactic. So, we decided to keep poll-bound Karnataka and West Bengal out of the campaign.”
Under the campaign, the Centre will try to achieve 100 per cent coverage of schemes like Ujjwala, Indradhanush, Saubhagya Yojana, Jan Dhan Yojana among others. As part of the programme, caste registration, income and scholarship certificates will be issued to the people. Modi will address a gathering, which will be broadcast live directly in all the villages.
A village sanitation programme will be organised on April 18 as a part of the Clean India festival and the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan. This programme will include cleanliness campaigns in villages. April 20 will be observed as Ujjwala Diwas, under which LPG connections will be set up in 15,000 houses.The government has decided to observe April 24 as Panchayati Raj Din. As part of the celebrations, which will be held both at the national- and village-level, the PM will address gram sabhas of Madhya Pradesh via teleconferencing. Electronic versions of local government directories will also be launched.
According to ministry officials, employees and village panchayats will be awarded for their work on April 28. The day will be observed as the Gram Shakti Abhiyan and LED bulbs will be distributed in villages.
“We want to work for the welfare of farmers and we will hold workshops at the block-level with an aim to double the farmers’ income,” the official added. The campaign concludes on May 5 with the organisation of livelihood and skill development fairs. “Around one lakh women and youth’s success stories will be celebrated on this day,” the official said.