Border villagers to be asked to take up boxing, archery

NEW DELHI: Villagers living on India’s borders will be encouraged to take up sports like boxing, archery, shooting and martial arts, especially in the North-East to wean them away from extremism, while Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan will also be taken to villages in all 106 border districts.

The Home Ministry has revised the guidelines for its Rs 990-crore Border Area Development Programme (BADP) for 2015-16, specifying that minimum of 5% of the funds must be spent by the states on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan by constructing toilets for ladies in rural areas and another 5% of the funds have to be spent on building sports infrastructure in border villages for boxing, archery, shooting and martial arts. “The idea is inspired from the success of sports icons of the North-East like Mary Kom. 40% of the total allocation under BADP has now been reserved for the 8 north-eastern states. We want to wean away N-E youth from extremism to sports,” a senior ministry official told ET. The new guidelines say: “Border Guarding Forces (BGFs) shall encourage sports activities among youths in border villages, The BGFs shall provide platform and coaches and groom children under the sports sector.”

Villages falling under 0-50 kilometers of the border will be considered for development under BADP now with the villages identified by BGFs within 10 kilometers of the International Border getting uppermost priority and being designated as ‘strategic villages’, as per the revised policy. The new plan will also ensure the convergence and dovetailing of various central/state schemes with the BADP. “Various infrastructure schemes may be dovetailed with MNREGA so as to have more coverage of projects taken up under BADP. All out effort must be made to take up those projects on topmost priority which are not covered under any scheme of Centre or state,” the revised policy says. 10% of the funds will also be devoted to having E-Chaupals and setting up model villages – which would be composite development of at least one village of sizeable population surrounded by 5-6 more villages close to border.

The MHA is also bringing in lot of scrutiny of the projects undertaken under BADP with a ‘Management Information System’ being launched by which states will have to do e-filing of progress of the projects as well as upload photographs on the website of all complete projects just after their completion. MHA has also asked for third party inspections for independent feedback on the quality of the work as well as an appropriate ‘Social Audit System’. The MHA has also specified to states that local NGOs could be engaged in executing the schemes, but not those NGOs which are receiving any foreign aid.