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Rural Development officers at the meeting, on July 1.[/caption]
Kohima, July 1 (EMN): A meeting to review the performance of work of the department of Rural Development was held on July 1 in the RD Conference Hall. The meeting was presided over by director of Rural Development, Imlimeren Jamir, updates stated on Monday.
The principal secretary of Rural Development, Bendangkokba was stated to have highlighted a case study of the migration of population from the rural to urban areas which he said was going ‘beyond expectation over the years leading to a drop in rural population.’
With the decline in the rural population, the official said that the workforce in the villages has been reduced. Interestingly too, the jhum cycle has been raised from 7-10 years to 10-15 years, the updates stated.
“To curb this migration of population from rural to urban areas, he suggested strengthening the implementation of programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), GIA and RSETI (NRLM) and providing income generating schemes to the rural youth,” the press release stated.
The officials in the meeting also talked about the ‘need’ to create a corpus fund for rural youths from out of the percentage earmarked in the GIA, the updates stated. They discussed also matters about providing financial assistance to farmers and to create wholesale markets in all the blocks of the MGNREGA.
The principal secretary is said to have directed all the districts and blocks to submit progress reports of Direct Benefit Transfer by July 15 besides reports of geo-tagging activities of the programmes by July 31.
Likewise, the officers were asked to furnish ‘replies of audit para,’ success stories of the GIA and of utilization certificates by July 25, the updates added.
