Panel labels Goa as 'bad performing' NEW DELHI, AUG 14 (UNI) - The parliamentary committee on urban development has indicted Goa along with Delhi and Jharkhand as "bad performing States". The committee also blamed the Delhi government for not undertaking projects under the urban job scheme, Swarna Jayanti Shahri Rozgar Yojna (SJSRY), despite having a large number of unemployed people.
It has asked the central government to take coercive steps to get the scheme implemented. "The committee is distressed to learn that Delhi is one of the States, which has not undertaken projects under SJSRY, despite facing ever-increasing urban unemployment, and problems in employment opportunities for the unorganized labor sector," the standing committee said in its Ninth report to Parliament. These states have not sent their quarterly progress report on the implementation of the self-employment scheme for urban poor for a long time. The committee has asked the ministry that the defaulting States should be impressed upon to send their quarterly progress reports on time so that actual impact of the scheme could be properly assessed in these states. If required, the ministry could take the matter at the minister/chief secretary level of concerned states, it said. The committee recommended that the ministry should strengthen the monitoring of the scheme at both the central and state levels by conducting regular field visits by senior officers of the ministry. It said the modification of the SJSRY scheme is at an advanced stage on the basis of the problems being faced by states and union territories. It stressed that the revised guidelines of the scheme should be finalized at the earliest after taking into consideration the views of all concerned. The revised guidelines should be flexible, innovative and be able to cater to the requirements of the urban poor, to a large extent, said the committee. The SJSRY was launched on December 1, 1997 after merging the three earlier urban poverty alleviation schemes-urban basic services for the poor (UBSP), Nehru Rozgar Yojna (NRY) and prime minister's integrated urban poverty eradication programme (PMI UPEP). The SJSRY is funded on a 75:25 basis between the Centre and States. The scheme rests on the foundation of community empowerment. Rather than relying on top-down implementation, this programme focuses on establishing and promoting community organization and structures to provide supporting and facilitating mechanism for local development. Source: oHerald Avelino Bastora/Kuwait
