Jairam Ramesh arriving today

Will be on Bastar tour from tomorrow

Raipur, November 08, 2011

The Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh will be on two-day Bastar tour from November 10. He will reach Raipur on Wednesday evening. From airport, he will straightaway go to Congress Bhawan and meet party workers to take information regarding implementation of Central schemes in the state. He will tour Jagdalpur, Kanker, Dantewada, Bijapur, and Narayanpur districts in two days and would take stock of rural development works there. He will also hold meeting of the public representatives of Bastar division along with officials of state’s Rural Development Department to review the progress of works being carried out under his department. He will proceed to Orissa after his Chhattisgarh tour.

This will be Ramesh’ second state tour after he got the Rural Development Ministry. He had first visited the state in July 2011 and had announced that he would tour Chhattisgarh districts in every three months. His state tour was earlier scheduled to begin on October 22 but was postponed owing to meeting of National Development Council on same day at New Delhi.

Ramesh, in his previous tour, had admitted that irregularities prevailed in MNREGA & PMGSY works in the state and had expressed concern that the government was unable to keep a tab on expenditure of Central funds meant for rural development schemes. The minister had clarified that his prime job was to keep a vigil on implementation of his ministry’s nine flagship programmes including MNREGA and PMGSY across the country.

He had also given tips to the officials in his last tour regarding proper implementation of works. He is likely to see how much his instructions had been followed.

He will further inquire whether the labourers were receiving timely payment or not. He had also instructed the government to open banks branches and post offices in the remote areas for convenience of labourers who had to travel long distance to receive payment. Still, many areas are devoid of banks and post offices.

Ramesh had clearly said that his prime focus would be on ten naxal-hit districts of Chhattisgarh. According to him, condition of rural development schemes is worse in 60 naxal-hit districts. About 80 percent of these districts are in three states – Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa.