The Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART), a registered society under aegis of the Department of Rural Development strives to encourage, promote and assist voluntary action in implementation projects for the enhancement of rural prosperity. It strengthens and promotes voluntary efforts in rural development with focus on injecting new technological inputs. It also acts as a catalyst for development of technology appropriate for rural areas. It strives to promote, plan, undertake, develop, maintain and support projects/ schemes aimed at all-round development, creation of employment opportunities, promotion of self-reliance, generation of awareness, organization and improvement in the quality of life of the people in rural areas through voluntary action.
SCOPE
While CAPART seeks to associate the voluntary sector in several schemes that are part of the planned development and are being implemented on National basis, it also support several innovative projects keeping the needs of specific areas in view.
STRATEGY
With a view to bringing CAPART nearer to the people and to ensure closer interaction between CAPART and voluntary agencies at the grassroots level, functioning of CAPART has been decentralized by setting up of nine Regional Committee/ Regional Centres at Jaipur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Guwahati and Dharwad. The Regional Committee are empowered to sanction project proposals to voluntary agencies upto an outlay of Rs. 10.00 lakhs in their respective regions.
FUNDING
The quantum of assistance is normally decided on the nature of the project and capability of the organization to take up the project to handle the funds requested. On acceptance of the terms and conditions, CAPART release sanctioned funds in suitable installments depending upon the nature of the projects, quantum of assistance involved and the proportion of assistance to be mobilized from other sources including contribution by beneficiaries.
HOW TO SEEK ASSISTANCE
NGOs can send their project proposals according to the guidelines of the respective schemes of CAPART for financial assistance to Director, CAPART, in respect of the respective regional committees centres.
DRDA ADMINISTRATION
District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) has traditionally been the principal organ at the District level to oversee the implementation of the anti-poverty programmes of the Ministry of Rural Development, Created originally for implementation of Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP). The DRDAs were subsequently entrusted with a number of programmes, both of the Central and State Governments. Since inception, the administrative costs of the DRDA were met by setting a part of the allocations for each programme. Of late, the number of the programmes had increased and several programmes have been restructured with a view to making them more effective. While an indicative staffing structure was provided to the DRDAs, experience showed that there was no uniformity in the staffing structure. It is in this context that a new centrally sponsored scheme-DRDA Administration has been introduced from 1st April, 1999 based on the recommendations of an inter-Ministerial committee known as Shankar Committee. The new scheme replaces the earlier practice of allocating percentage of programme funds to the administrative costs.
The objective of the scheme of DRDA Administration is to strengthen the DRDAs and to make them more professional and effective. Under the scheme, DRDA is visualized as specialized agency capable of managing anti-poverty programmes of the Ministry on the one hand and effectively relate these to the overall efforts of poverty eradication in the district on the other.
The DRDA will continue to watch over and ensure effective utilization of the funds intended for anti-poverty programmes. It will need to develop distinctive capabilities for poverty eradication. It will perform tasks which are different from anti-poverty programmes of the Ministry of Rural Development. If DRDAs are to be entrusted with programmes of other Ministries or those of the State Governments, it must be ensured that these have a separate identity, a separate cell shall be created in the Zilla Parishad which will maintain a separate identity and separate accounts.
The funding pattern of the programme will be in the ratio of 75:25 between the Centre and the States.
