Villages within 10 km of IB to be developed on priority

 All villages located within 10 km of the international border will be developed on a priority basis with special emphasis on promotion of sports activities and rural tourism.

This was decided by the Home Ministry in consultation with Union Ministries like Rural Development, Sports, Health and Family Welfare and HRD.

While the sports activities include rock climibing, river rafting, forest tracking, special initiatives will be taken for development of goshala, fishery ponds etc.

A fresh guideline has also been issued by the Home Ministry saying that the Border Area Development Programme (BADP) has been extended to cover all the villages which are located within the 0-10 km of the international border.

Priority will be given to those villages located within 0-10 km from the international border and within that the villages identified by the Border Guarding Forces (BGF) shall get upper-most priority.

The funds under BADP are provided to the states as a 100 per cent non-lapsable special central assistance. The programme is supplemental in nature and the budget allocation for the financial year 2015-16 is Rs.990 crore.

The list of schemes permissible under BADP has been expanded to include schemes and activities relating to swatchhta aabhiyan, skill development programmes, promotion of sports activities in border areas, promotion of rural tourism/ border tourism; protection of heritage sites.

Construction of helipads in remote and inaccessible hilly areas, which do not have road connectivity, skill development training to farmers for use of modern or scientific technique in farming, organic farming are some other areas to be given emphasis.

Provision for third party inspection and quality control mechanism under Home Ministry for random inspections of BADP schemes by independent monitors (Individual/ Agency) to be designated as National Quality Monitors has been made.

It has been provided that the state governments shall have the monitoring of BADP schemes by the existing district-level monitoring/ vigilance committee where local Members of Parliament and MLAs are represented.

Special/specific area schemes such as composite development of at least one village of sizeable population surrounded by five-six or more villages close to the border as model village, swachh bharat abhiyan, construction of toilets in schools, public places particularly for women, warehouses for food grains and fodder in hilly areas particularly in snow-bound areas of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, E-chaupals, agrishops, mobile media vans etc. have been made.

Border Area Development Programme (BADP) has been implemented in 367 border blocks of 104 border districts in 17 states.

The main objective of BADP is to meet special developmental needs and well-being of the people living in remote and inaccessible areas situated near the international border and to saturate the border areas with the entire essential infrastructure through convergence of central/state/ BADP/ local schemes and participatory approach.

BADP was started in 1986-87 for balanced development of border areas in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthan and subsequently it was extended to all the land borders.