Backward Regions Grant Fund
The Backward Regions Grant Fund is an Indian government program designed to "address regional imbalances in development." The programme was launched by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Barpeta, Assam on 19 February 2007.
The BRGF Programme covers 250 districts in 27 States, of which 232 districts fall under the purview of Parts IX and IX-A of the Constitution dealing with the Panchayats and the Municipalities, respectively. The remaining 18 districts are covered by other local government structures, such as Autonomous District and Regional Councils under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution and state specific arrangements as in the case of Nagaland and the hill areas of Manipur.
The program calls for each district to undertake a study to determine the district's problems and then create a plan to address those problems. The program was funded with 19.25 billion rupees in 2006–2007.
Objectives
The Backward Regions Grant Fund is designed to redress regional imbalances in development by way of providing financial resources for supplementing and converging existing developmental inflows into the identified backward districts, so as to:- Bridge critical gaps in local infrastructure and other development requirements that are not being adequately met through existing inflows,
- Strengthen, to this end, Panchayat- and Municipality-level governance with more appropriate capacity building, to facilitate participatory planning, decision making, implementation and monitoring, to reflect local felt needs,
- Provide professional support to local bodies for planning, implementation and monitoring their plans,
- Improve the performance and delivery of critical functions assigned to Panchayats, and counter possible efficiency and equity losses on account of inadequate local capacity.