Itanagar: On Monday, Chief Minister Pema Khandu said that all Arunachal Pradesh villages along the borders with China, Myanmar, and Bhutan will be fully developed and have all basic facilities.
The Chief Minister mentioned that Arunachal has a large number of villages along its 1,817 km international borders with China (1,080 km), Myanmar (520 km), and Bhutan (217 km) during the inauguration ceremony of a three-day training event commemorating the National Panchayati Raj Day.
"We will also develop all the other villages by convergence of state and Central government schemes and programmes," he said.
Khandu asserted that the state government with the support and guidance of the Centre is committed to develop each village of the state.
He mentioned how Home Minister Amit Shah recently went to Kaho, the 'first' village on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Anjaw district, to inaugurate the ambitious 'Vibrant Village Programme' (VVP) for the development of the villages along the border.
For the development of villages in Arunachal Pradesh, the Chief Minister has supported nine factors to meet the set localised sustainable development goals (LSDGs), based on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations.
A ideal road map for the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) to plan and implement development projects for their respective segments, he added, are the nine factors as stipulated by the Department of Panchayati Raj.
The nine parameters are - clean and green village, water sufficient village, child friendly village, healthy village, poverty free village, self-sufficient infrastructure village, socially secured and socially just village, village with good governance and gender equality village.
"In accordance with the 17 SDGs adopted by the United Nations, of which 15 are relevant for Arunachal Pradesh, the state government has been preparing the annual budget to achieve these goals. Likewise, the PRIs can now plan to achieve these nine parameters prescribed in the LSDGs for wholesome development of the villages," the Chief Minister said.
While informing that Rs 123 crore was accorded to the PRIs last year, Khandu said that in this year's budget (2023-24), the fund for Panchayati Raj has been increased to Rs 143 crore.
In addition to the grants from the finance commission, he revealed that the state is allocating 10% of its own resources to PRIs.
"In fact, there's no drought of funds with the state government. Things are not progressing well because the planning system is not perfect yet," he said.
Khandu restated his earlier recommendation that similar plans and activities involving many agencies be merged into a single entity and implemented at the grass-roots level.—Inputs from Agencies
