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A Seminar on “Provision of Homestead cum Garden Plot to Landless Families”, was held at Krishi Bhawan, here today under the Chairmanship of Dr. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Minister of Rural Development. The seminar was attended by Prof. Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission, Secretary, RD, Dr. T. Haque, Chairman, Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) and senior officers of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj and Revenue Department from different States and representatives of NGOs of BAIF, Gram Vikas, Orissa and also representatives of Rural Development Institutes.
Dr. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh He emphasized the importance of allocation of at least 10 cents homestead-cum-garden land to landless /homeless rural poor people in order to uplift their social status, eradication of poverty and providing sustainable livelihood. He further mentioned that this Ministry will try to evolve a mechanism to provide such lands by dovetailing the available resources under the various poverty alleviation programmes.
While Chairing the technical session, Professor Abhijit Sen, Member Planning commission, mentioned that Planning Commission would flag this issue during the mid time appraisal of 10th Plan. However, he emphasized that such scheme can be “Sync’ with rural employment guarantee s cheme and existing schemes of the Rural Development. He also impressed upon that whatever land distributed to landless rural poor under the Land Reforms Programmes – Distribution of Ceiling Surplus Land, Bhoodan Land, Government Wasteland, the assignees should have clear record of rights and have possession over such lands.
The representatives of various States expressed their views and suggested the modalities for implementing such schemes. The Principal Secretary, Land Reforms, Government of West Bengal presented a concept paper on the allocation of homestead-cum-garden land to landless rural poor.
After detailed deliberation in the Seminar it was decided that remaining undistributed land under the Land Reforms Programmes to be distributed to the rural landless poor as Homestead-cum-garden land. The available funds under the schemes of Swaranjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SCSY} and Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) can be dovetailed to support schemes in order to allocate at least 10-15 cent land to the landless/homeless rural poor. The modality of deliverables, implementation strategy and linkage may be left to the State Governments for its effective implementation.
HB /NSR
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