Each
District will have its own District Rural Development Agency. The DRDA
would be headed by a Project Director, who should be of the rank of an
Additional District Magistrate. In respect of such States where DRDA does
not have a separate identity, a separate Cell to be created in the Zilla
Parishad to maintain separate accounts, so that these are capable of being
audited separately.
The DRDA
should emerge as a specialized agency capable of managing the Anti Poverty
Programmes of the Ministry on the one hand and to effectively relate these
to the overall effort of poverty eradication in the District.
Actual
execution of programmes will be handled outside the DRDAs and the DRDA's
role will be to facilitate the implementation of the programmes, to
supervise/oversee and monitor the progress, to receive and send the
progress reports as well as to account for the funds.
DRDAs will
develop the capacity to build synergies among different agencies involved,
for the most effective results.
If DRDAs are
to be entrusted with programmes of other Ministries or those of the State
Governments, it would be ensured that these have a definite Anti Poverty
focus.
The
Chairman, Zilla Parishad would be the Chairman of the Governing Body of
the DRDA. The DRDA shall also have an Executive Committee.
The Project
Director should cause the annual accounts of the DRDA to be prepared not
later than 30th June. These shall be duly audited.