Districts, blocks and gram panchayats awarded for development in rural Bengal

Perceptible changes in rural Bengal have been noticed in the past five years because of tireless work carried out by the Panchayat and Rural development department.

Even the Centre has appreciated the work carried out in areas like construction of rural roads, toilets and projects taken up under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Scheme (MGNREGA) and awarded the department.

This is for the first time since the formation of Trinamool Congress government in 2011, a two-day state Panchayat conference is being held at Netaji Indoor stadium where three districts, 10 blocks and one Gram Panchayat were awarded for successfully carrying out the projects and also showcase the various schemes that have achieved success and received national appreciation.

In the past five years, 50 lakh Individual Household Latrines (IHHLs) have been constructed in the state, which is highest in the country. The numbers of IHHLs constructed during 2013-14, 2015-16 and 2016-17 (up to January 27) are 6.08 lakh, 8.47 lakh, 14.32 lakh and 18.83 lakh respectively.

Nadia was country's first district to have been declared as Open Defecation Free district (ODF). Three more districts, Hooghly, East Midnapore and North 24 Parganas have been declared ODF and three more namely Burdwan, South 24 Parganas and Cooch Behar will be declared ODF by March taking the total number of ODF districts to 7 by March 31. Steps have been taken to declare all the districts as ODF by March 2019. Mission Nirmal Bangla is one of the state government's flagship projects.

Generation of nearly 1 billion person days in MGNREGA lead to state's performance in terms of employment generation to be close to the approved labour budgets; in terms of expenditure, it was more than 186 billion in INR with an average of Rs 4000 crore per year.

In Indira Awas Yojana the Panchayat and Rural Development department has made major achievement. Out of 4.24 lakh houses sanctioned in 2015-16, 3.25 lakh houses have been built. In Pradhanmantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), 11426.11 km rural roads have been built till December 2016 from 2011-12 at an estimated cost of Rs 6042.45 crore.

The department has taken up capacity building and training of elected representatives and functionaries of panchayats. Constant monitoring of the projects led to the success of the gram panchayats which led to major development in rural Bengal.