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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF BACKWARD REGION GRANT FUND IN KERALA

BRGF (Backward Region Grant Fund), relatively a recent novelty programme, is embedded within the broad framework of the sustainable development in India. It has been implemented in two districts of Kerala, namely Wayanad and Palakkad, in 2007. At the outset it was found that the average investment p...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: MARTIN PATRICK AND RAJESH K
Format: Printed Book
Published: AJRSH: ASIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SOCIAL SCIENCE & HUMANITIES 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://10.26.1.76/ks/006207.pdf
Description
Summary:BRGF (Backward Region Grant Fund), relatively a recent novelty programme, is embedded within the broad framework of the sustainable development in India. It has been implemented in two districts of Kerala, namely Wayanad and Palakkad, in 2007. At the outset it was found that the average investment per project seemed to be low for Kerala. The analysis on vertical allocation in both Palakkad and Wayanad reveals that the BRGF guideline is not properly observed in the distribution or allocation of the Fund. In this respect Wayanad has done more justice than Palakkad by distributing the largest share of Fund among the GPs. The horizontal allocation of the Fund showed that some traditional development plans were given thrust under BRGF too; no special care had been devoted to prepare separate plans under BRGF. The programme has not done any justice towards the realisation of upliftment of poor and marginalised sections, particularly SC and STs. There was no deliberate attempt on the part of District Planning Committee to converge the BRGF programme, another objective of BRGF, with NREGS or other centrally sponsored programmes in both districts of Kerala. The grant for Capacity building is meant for facilitating participatory planning, decision making, implementation and monitoring and KILA (Kerala Institute of Local Administration) has fulfilled these objectives to a greater extent. Designating the Department of Panchayati Raj as the nodal department at the State level the management, monitoring and evaluation of the programme were smoothly done but not at the desired level. Plan plus, the reporting tool has not been made use of by the Line Departments, though it has been used by Block panchayats in Palakkad. There are no serious efforts the professional support for planning and implementation of projects, another BRGF guideline. BRGF insists for social audit, but state government has not issued any guideline to this effect Study on intra-district differences identified the issue of inequity in the fund disbursal, i.e., a few Blocks benefiting out of it particularly in the initial year. It all invites the need for increase in the efficiency of the implementing agency of the BRGF programme.
Physical Description:Volume 3, Issue 4 (April, 2013)