Punjab Government has initiated a scheme for the modernisation and improvement of the villages of the State having 34 to 50 percent of the Scheduled Caste (SC) population.
Under this programme, the Government would spent Rs two crore during 2016-17, said an official spokesperson of the State Rural Development and Panchayats Department.
The Spokesperson said that at the first phase of the project, five villages in each block would be selected to upgrade with the ultra-modern facilities and after that remaining villages would be covered.
Rural Development and Panchayats Department had been made nodal agency for modernization and improvement of villages, spokesperson added. As per the Census-2011, about 3453 villages had been identified those having 34 to 50 percent Scheduled Caste population.
“The State Government is fully committed to uplift the under privileged sections of the society through modernisation and improvement of the infrastructure at the village level which has large scheduled caste (SC) population,” said the spokesperson.
He said that it depicts the sincere efforts of the State Government in the past as Census-2011 had reported that the rural Punjab had been at a better place vis-à-vis other states, considering most of the indicators of economic and social development, like the percentage of rural SC households having pakka houses, own sources of drinking water, electricity connections and drain outlets for waste water, motor cycles or scooters, television sets and lPG connections in Punjab is one of the highest in the country.
Spokesperson informed that under this program, basic infrastructure like construction of streets and drains construction of phirni, solar street lights, construction or repair of SC dharamshala, safe drinking water and disposal of sullage water would be provided in Scheduled Caste abaadi on priority basis.
He said that department has recently conducted a survey according to which there are approximately 1447 villages with 34 to 39 percent of scheduled caste population, 1112 villages with 40 to 44 percent and 894 villages with 45 to 50 percent with scheduled caste population.