More funds for drought relief

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 2. To facilitate drought relief efforts, the Ministry of Rural Development has relaxed the priorities in its guidelines for the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP) and the Prime Minister's Gramodaya Yojna (PMGY). Now rural drinking water funds can also be utilised for activities relating to repair, rejuvenation, renovation, restoration and replacement of existing rural drinking water schemes in drought hit areas.

Under this relaxation, the Ministry of Rural Development has released the first installment of Rs 4438.50 lakh of an allocation of Rs. 8877 lakh for 2001-2002 ARWSP to provide drinking eater in rural areas of Madhya Pradesh.

The Union Minister for Rural Development, Mr. M. Venkaiah Naidu, as part of his declaration to be transparent, said an opening balance of Rs. 571.37 lakh was available with M.P. on April 1, 2001. Thus, the State now has an amount of Rs 5009.87 lakh available with the under ARWSP for the current financial year.

Under Sector Reforms, five districts namely Gwalior, Hoshangabad, Narsinghpur, Raisen and Sehore were selected at a total cost of Rs. 16722.94 lakh, with the central share being Rs. 15635.77 lakh. An amount of Rs. 4690.731 lakh had been released for these districts.

An amount of Rs. 1803.55 lakh was released for the State under Prime Minister's Gramodaya Yojna-Rural Drinking Water during the current financial year, of which Rs. 853.27 is reported to have been utilised by Madhya Pradesh .

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