Rs3,400 crore scheme for remote habitats

CHENNAI: Municipal Administration Minister K P Munusamy on Thursday announced a flagship programme for upgrading the infrastructure facilities in remote villages (habitations) - the Tamil Nadu Village Habitations Improvement (THAI) Scheme - to be implemented at a cost of Rs 3,400 crore. The scheme will be implemented in the next five years and for the current financial year, the government has allocated Rs 680 crore.The new scheme would reduce the rural-urban divide and would reduce the problems caused by the migration of people from rural areas to urban areas, the Minister said replying to the discussion on the demands for grants for his department in the State Assembly.Of the 12,620 village panchayats, 96 had been merged with their adjacent municipalities and corporations. At present, there are 12,524 village panchayats. In these panchayats, there were 79,394 remote villages (habitations). On an average, each village panchayat has at least seven habitations. Since all welfare schemes were aimed at benefiting the village panchayats so far, many habitations could not benefit out of them. The Minister said the THAI scheme has been evolved to improve infrastructure facilities in all remote habitations.The Minister said equitable distribution of resources to all the habitations would allay the disparities in development. The THAI Scheme would bring in a paradigm shift in the approach towards development of rural areas.The Minister further said the Green Houses Scheme would be implemented at a cost of Rs 5,400 crore in five years and for the current year, Rs 1,080 crore has been allocated to construct 60,000 houses. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme would be implemented at a cost of `3,472 crore this year. SMS-based monitoring would be introduced to prevent irregularities in implementing this scheme and priority would be given to renovate the silted up water resources through remote-sensing equipment.Munusamy said 13,210 sanitary complexes for women in rural areas would be repaired. As many as 100 self-help groups would be set up for transgenders and rotation fund would be extended to them.