Rs 40,000 cr for development of villages in the state: KCR

Telangana CM KCR has called on sarpanches and village secretaries to be the change agents for development of villages. He also promised that in all, there would be a whopping Rs 40,000 crore available over the next five years for developing villages and turning them into healthy, clean and green places for people to live in.

Chandrashekhar Rao was addressing a day-long meeting with 320 specially selected resource persons at Pragati Bhavan here on Wednesday. Stressing on the need for the resource persons to help sarpanches and village secretaries become change agents, the Chief Minister said the State government would shoulder the responsibilities for ensuring drinking water, electricity, and laying of roads to villages. This will allow the sarpanches and village secretaries to focus on much-needed cleanliness, sanitation, improving greenery and construction of crematoria, he said.

With regard to funding village development, the Chief Minister said Constituency Development Fund of MLAs and MLCs totalling Rs 480 crore will be used for village development. He said as per the 14th Finance Commission allocations, the State will receive Rs 1,628 crore for village development with the State matching these releases which will work out to about Rs 1,611 per head in a village with 500 people. In addition, Rs 3,500 crore will accrue through NREGA which should be used to meet labour costs. In all, Rs 7,236 crore will be available each year for villages in the State. The Telangana government will also make allocations for village development in the budget. All put, as much as Rs 40,000 crore will be available for village development in the next five years, the Chief Minister explained.