Vasundhara Scheme moves at a snail’s pace
bidyut Mohanty
Vasundhara Scheme moves at a snail’s pace
By Express News Service - BHUBANESWAR
01st February 2013 08:24 AM
The much-vaunted Vasundhara Scheme of Naveen Patnaik Government seems to have fallen flat. In the tribal and Left Wing Extremists (LWE)-hit districts, where it was hyped as an agent of land reforms to appease the indigenous population, the scheme has progressed tardily prompting the Revenue and Disaster Management Department to rap at least 13 Collectors.
Not only is the Department furious that Vasundhara has not made much headway, it is also peeved that distribution of Government waste land programme has not gone far either.
Under Vasundhara, families without homestead land were to be provided 10 decimal land and the scheme’s deadline was October last year. However, over a dozen districts have been asked to explain the factual position by February 5 since the progress of the scheme gives an impression of a failure. In Gajapati district, just about 4,372 families have been provided homestead land though the total number of such families as on April 1, 2012 was estimated at 15,201.
As many as 535 families could not be provided homestead land due to non-availability of land while 10,294 families are still landless.
The district has not made much progress in the waste land distribution scheme either. While 9,624 families were estimated to be without cultivable land, just 839 have so far been benefited leaving 8,507 out of its coverage.
Deogarh, another LWE-affected district, also saw just about 50 per cent implementation in Vasundhara. Of the 4,198 families who were without homestead land, by end of last year, just 2003 families could benefit. Similarly, the Government waste land scheme covered 966 families out of 1,422 in total.
Another tribal district Rayagada reported similar outcome with 8,106 families out of 14,800 covered under Vasundhara with 4,546 still waiting for the benefits. However, Nuapada was probably the only district to have given a positive result where all 4,159 families were covered under Vasundhara while 2,013 out of 3,039 families benefited from the waste land distribution scheme.
The progress of the two schemes has prompted Principal Secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management Department Taradatt to shoot letters to Collectors in which he stated that the status gives the impression “as if revenue functionaries holding key positions do not care for implementing critically important government programmes.”
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