Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched by PM in Jharkhand aims at ensuring saturation of schemes

Ranchi: The 'Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra', a nationwide outreach programme to be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, aims at ensuring saturation of the Centre's flagship schemes in 2.7 lakh panchayats by January 25, 2024, an official said.

IEC (Information, Education and Communication) vans to be flagged off by Modi as part of the Yatra will cover a vast area of the country as the government seeks to ensure that the benefits of the schemes reach all targeted sections of the people in a time bound manner, he said.

Modi will also start a Rs 24,000-crore scheme aimed at holistic development of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) and release the Rs 18,000 crore 15th instalment of PM-KISAN scheme as part of the two-month long programme.

During his two-day Jharkhand visit, Modi is also scheduled to hold a roadshow in Jharkhand's capital Ranchi on Tuesday evening.

The campaign to reach out to the people who are the beneficiaries of the Centre's flagship programmes both in rural and urban areas will be launched by the PM on November 15 and culminate on January 25, a central government official who came here to oversee preparations for Modi’s visit told PTI.

"We are going to visit 2.7 lakh gram panchayats of the country and about 15,000 urban locations where the ground level activities will take place by these automated IEC vans which have been designed to talk to people, inform them about the flagship programmes and what has been accomplished so far," the official said.

There are 19 vans which will be flagged off in Jharkhand while the Prime Minister will be flagging off 5 to 7 of them in Khunti, the official said adding there are 226 gram panchayats in nine districts of the state that will be covered under it.

The nine districts are Khunti, Dumka, Godda, Gumla, Pakur, Palamu, Sahibganj, Simdega and West Singhbhum.

"Tomorrow, 118 vans will be flagged off in the country. In total we have around 2800 vans across the country, which will move for the next two months informing people about all schemes - housing or drinking water or financial inclusion," he said.

Enrolment of potential beneficiaries will be done through details ascertained during the Yatra, the official said.

"We start with the tribal areas in 21 states in 69 districts of the country and will reach out to 393 blocks in 8940 gram panchayats in the first phase,” he said.

The official said the vans will halt at particular places for two to three hours to ensure that the advantages of central government schemes reach the beneficiaries.

"It is a collaborative effort of the central and state governments," he said.

To attract people, movies in regional languages specific to states will be screened in the vans.

"We are also developing an app which will help us know what is happening and what are the people's reactions," he added.

This is the first phase of the campaign while phase II will start next week.