Maharashtra government to launch two ambitious village schemes

Taking cue from the Centre’s project for rural development, the state will launch two more ambitious programmes in the state.

A new state-level scheme named after late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray has also been proposed for strengthening gram panchayats.

Finance minister Sudhir Munguntiwar announced the two programmes — Smart Village and Chief Minister Rural Drinking Water Supply Programme. Both these schemes are based on Central government projects Smart City and National Rural Drinking Water Supply Programme (NRDWSP), respectively.

“The Smart Village programme has been launched to ensure continuous and sustainable development of villages. Under this scheme, the gram panchayats will compete with each other at block level for selection as Smart Gram Panchayat. The winning panchayat will be awarded with special development funds,” said Mr Munguntiwar.

The Chief Minister Rural Drinking Water Supply Programme will revive old regional water supply schemes, some regional rural drinking water supply sub-schemes and include those areas which are not included in the NRDWSP.

The proposed expenditure for this scheme is Rs 2,500 crore, whereas an outlay of '500 crore has been proposed in this year’s budget.

The Centre has planned to develop 100 smart cities in the country, whereas it has also been implementing NRDWSP to improve water supply in rural areas.