Ukhrul.Nov.2,2012
India’s rural housing policy of Indira Awaz Yojana(IAY) has able to provide remarkable benefits to the people of Ukhrul District. More than 10,000 homeless families in the District has been provided house since the beginning of IAY in the country.
Project Officer of DRDA Ukhrul A.C Ningshimi in her topical presentation on Rural Housing at the second day of Bharat Nirman Campaign in Ukhrul said that the IAY has been implemented in the District comprehensively based on the list provided by the villages basing on the ‘permanent waitlist’ criteria. She however lament that the Permanent IAY Waitlist cannot be accurately implemented in the District due to lack of updating of the list viz. BBL category, disabled persons etc by the concern village Authority.
Manipur being a State which significantly comprised of hilly areas the Project Officer categorically mention the difference between hill areas and valley areas in the implementation of IAY. She stated that hill areas due to geographical reason of being more terrainous coupled with poor transport facilities; the IAY benefits’ of Rs.48, 500 is being given to the beneficiaries as against Rs.45, 000 of the valley areas.
Indira Awaz Yojana is one of India’s foremost scheme which addresses housing shortage in rural areas as part of poverty alleviation program. Under the scheme Below Poverty Line (BPL) families are given priority in the selection of beneficiaries.
The Project Officer while elaborating on the implementation of IAY in Ukhrul District said that there are two types of IAY. The first is to provide assistance for new construction while as the second is to provide assistance in the upgradation work. Apart from the empirical implementation of IAY in the District she also vividly highlights the features which include 5 percent reservation for natural calamities and 3 percent for differently abled persons.
In years to come, the Ukhrul town may face a total shortage of water considering the drastic reduction of water production volume at the Shirui hills and in the absence of alternative means so far.
In an address on “Rural Drinking Water Supply” in the afternoon session of the Bharat Nirman Campaign organized by PIB, Imphal on Friday, V Shangreiphao, SE, Rural Circle No. 11, PHED, Manipur said the water production level has drastically reduced over the years and falling totally short for the growing population in the Ukhrul town.
“The yield of water source has reduced three-fourth since the earlier years. In this case, the Ukhrul town would experience total water shortage in near future,” he stated.
Unless certain measures are taken up to preserve and boost the water sources at Shirui hills, he expressed concerned that the hilly town may face a serious drought with high concentration of population.
However, he stated that there are proposals for implementation of catchment area protection programme to preserve the water sources, while adding it already has the Cabinet approval of the State government.
Mentioning that there are various work programmes under rural water supply to be implemented in the district, the resource person informed that there are 13 centrally-sponsored schemes to be taken up at estimated cost of 5.65 crore budget and nine state-funded schemes at a gross budget of 1.81 crore.
He also informed that five NLCPR funded water supply schemes are being implemented in the district, while the work progress at Riha (Loutei) at 2.61 crore is at 72 percent and Shangshak at 4.92 crore is at 40 percent. The other programmes in the pipeline are to be taken up at Kamjong, Lunghar and Tolloi.
He also added that the performance of rural water supply programme was poor in the financial year 2011-2012 citing fund constraints and diversion as the main factors.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/indira-awaz-yojana-a-boon-to-hill-people/
