Srinagar (NVI): The Jammu and Kashmir government today launched the second phase of its ambitious people-oriented ‘Back to Village (B2V)’ programme, which will involve more than 5000 gazetted officers besides other stakeholders.
This mega programme which aims to strengthen grassroots democracy and participatory development was launched in several places including Behbagh in Kulgam district, Lasjan and Khanmoh.
District Magistrate of Srinagar, Shahid Choudhary attended the programme at several places.
The ‘Back to Village’ programme was launched as a unique project by the government in June 2019, for speeding up developmental tempo in rural areas and creating a genuine partnership between the administration and the people.
According to officials, the B2V-phase II will be more intense as it will be based on four main objectives like follow up of B2V-1, empowerment of Panchayats, 100 percent coverage of beneficiary oriented schemes and doubling of farmers’ income by 2022.
The first phase of the outreach campaign drew an overwhelming response from the general public during which administration was able to analyse the critical gaps in each Panchayat to ensure that the basic amenities in each of them are available to people.
So far, Rs 1000 crore have already been released in favour of Panchayats while Rs 700 crore are in the pipeline for fast-tracking the development process. Besides, Rs five crore each were released earlier to Deputy Commissioners for implementing the commitments made under the first phase of the ‘Back to Village’ programme, officials said.