Cabinet secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha has written to State chief secretaries and administrators of the Union Territories (UTs) to appoint a nodal officer for every block for the Prime Minister’s flagship schemes. The flagship schemes identified for monitoring and their coverage across the country include Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Ujala Scheme, Saubhagya (Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana), Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana (lPG connection for families) and Mission Indradhanush (immunisation of children under 2 years and all pregnant women).
All the flagship schemes are aimed at benefiting the neglected and women in rural areas. The move is also a clear signal that the Centre is attempting hard to outdo the Opposition’s strategy to galvanise dalit anger, sources said.
The government’s interventions have come at a time when it’s working hard to counter the opposition highlighting how the focus of Narendra Modi government is poor and downtrodden.
The cabinet secretary has also directed the state governments to nominate one officer for each block of the concerned districts to support implementation of these special initiatives. Recently, the government had appointed more than 100 joint secretaries as the prabhari officers (officer in-charge) for 115 most backward districts to transform them.
Sources said that the Centre has deployed more than1,000 bureaucrats in 22,000 villages across 500 districts with high SC and ST and population as the focal area of attention.
“The Centre has assigned one director, deputy director or under-secretary-level officer to every village to co-ordinate the programme. These officers will coordinate with district magistrate (DMs) and deputy commissioners (DCs) for ensuring total coverage of its schemes to maximise the number of beneficiaries. Specific districts and the number of identified villages have been allotted to each group. We have been told about how to carry out this responsibility to reach out these villages,” said the sources.
“A special initiative has to be undertaken to ensure 100 percent coverage of the flagship programmes in the identified villages having high density of SC and STs population. These nodal officers will work as coordinators between the Centre and states accelerate the coverage,” sources added.
“Such is the importance of the task that the Centre has started dispatching officers to villages in far-flung areas to gather comprehensive reports from ground zero and ensure that the programmes are actually translating into reality and benefitting people,” said the sources.
The cabinet secretary’s letter said, “The concerned ministries and departments have formulated their action plans to ensure 100 percent saturation coverage of the flagship programmes in the identified villages and would be sharing the same with the state governments. The field functionaries of these ministries and departments have also been activated and directed to work in close collaboration with the district administration.”
As many as 35.8 million lPG connections have been provided to BPl families across the country since the PMUY programme was launched. As per government data, 30,000-40,000 people are applying (PMUY) per day for lPG connections. The lPG coverage in the country has increased to 80 percent, compared with around 62 percent before the launch of the PMUY.
Under the Ujala scheme, the government has target to replace 77 crore incandescent bulbs with lED bulbs by March 2019.
As far as Jan Dhan Yojana is concerned, almost 20 percent of the total 31.20 crore accounts are lying dormant. The government data say that till February, about 59 lakh (1.9 percent) Jan Dhan accounts had been closed since the launch of the scheme.
The Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojna (offered also at SBI) is a term insurance plan and the premium under this insurance scheme is less than Re one each day. For a mere Rs. 330 per annum, one is entitled to receive Rs. 2 lakh insurance cover. More than 52.2 million people have secured the future of their loved ones by availing this insurance scheme.
Under Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana ‘Saubhagya’ - the government proposes to provide electricity connections to over 4 crore families in rural and urban areas ahead of the earlier target of March, 2019.