Disbursals to SHGs and road sector in rural areas lag: NSO report

Roads constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana and the self-help groups’ (SHGs) Community Investment Fund (CIF) are among four schemes that have underperformed during the June quarter. This was revealed by the National Statistical Office (NSO), which monitors these schemes on a quarterly basis under the 20-point programme (TPP).

Performance of an item is considered poor if the level of targets achieved has been below 80 per cent.

Of the four items, the “area covered under plantation (public and forest lands),” which is implemented by the ministry of environment, has achieved only 13 per cent of its target during the first quarter.

This is, however, better than the 1 per cent target achieved last year during the corresponding quarter.

The other three items — ‘seedlings planted (public and forest lands)’, ‘roads constructed under Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana’ and ‘number of SHGs provided CIF’, saw 24 per cent, 42 per cent and 43 per cent of their stipulated targets being achieved.

Correspondingly, only 2 per cent, 17 per cent and 4 per cent of the targets were achieved in the first quarter of last year for these three items.

While the former comes under the environment ministry, the other two are under the rural development ministry.

Of the 10 items whose performance has been “very good” (an achievement of 90 per cent targets), three items — ‘number of SHGs promoted (new and revived)’, rural housing under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Rural)’ and ‘pump sets energised’ achieved more than 100 per cent targets.

The TPP has been in operation since 1975 with the aim of improving the quality of life. It has been restructured several times and the present iteration, approved in 2006, has been in operation since April 2007.

TPP-2006 has 20 points covering 65 items. These 65 items are coterminous with various programmes and schemes of the government, which are administered by ministries or departments. They are mostly implemented through states or Union Territories.

The ministry of statistics & programme implementation (MoSPI) is tasked with monitoring all the 65 items. Of these, 17 are reported on a quarterly basis, and the others on an annual basis.