The Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Ali Mohammad Sagar has said that phase wise implementation approach would be adopted to ensure that UMEED scheme covers all the 143 Blocks and 4098 Gram Panchayat over a period of five years.The Minister was addressing officers during a review meeting convened to discuss the implementation of UMEED scheme in the state.Commissioner /Secretary Mr. Farooq Ahmad Peer, who is also the Mission Director of the scheme in the state, State Coordinator Ms.Yogita Rana, Additional Mission Directors Jammu/Kashmir, Mr. Arun Manhas, Mr. Tariq Ahmad, Project Officers and other senior officers of the Rural Development Department were present in the meeting.Mr. Sagar directed the officers to ensure the speedy implementation of the scheme, which has the large potential for providing employment opportunities to the women living in rural and far flung areas. He said that the scheme would also ensure that economy of the rural areas also gets an impetus by involving various Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and village organisations into its fold, which would go a long way in ensuring the much needed work avenues to the women folk.
The Minister also asked for putting in place a mechanism which would monitor the implementation of the Scheme, so that it comes up as a success story and can be extended to other districts of the state in a phased manner. He said that UMEED has a large scope of transforming socio-economic profile of rural women folk and the area in which it is introduced.It was given out in the meeting that 64 village organisations have been formed under the scheme by including 574 SHGs in Jammu pision and 26 village organisations by including 206 SHGs in Kashmir pision. 1180 women activists/ community mobilizers have been identified from the state for immersion training in OMPLIS, Kurnool, Andra Pradesh.The meeting was told that the Jammu and Kashmir state has been sanctioned a special project by the Centre and accordingly 5 new blocks would be taken up under Resource Block Strategy during 2013-14(2 blocks each from Jammu and Kashmir pisions and one from Ladakh region) in addition tothe already taken up blocks of Lar, Khan Sahib, Chenani and Basholi.