To its credit, the ministry has already started taking steps to address the points raised by the council. The ministry has managed to get an approval from the expenditure and finance committee to raise the proportion of budget for administrative expenses from current two per cent to five per cent. This is likely to be approved by the Cabinet soon.

The Rural Development ministry has also planned to intensify its campaign to raise awareness among the various stake holders.

On staff shortages, the proposed staffing pattern envisages one administrative assistant at gram Panchayat Level, one technical assistant for 10 gram Panchayats, a full time Programme Officer at the block level, and an accounts, technical and computer assistant. But most of the states have not been able to make these arrangements so far. In addition, to meet the demand for independent redressal mechanism, the ministry has recently started emphsizing the need for social audit in all the 200 districts. The ministry has conducted a national workshop for conducting social audit in select districts in UP, Maharashtra, Bihar and Chhattisgarh.

Raghuvansh Prasad said elections and monsoon had delayed implementation of the scheme in several states but assured that the programme will now soon see a jump in meeting targets. But it remains to be seen whether the ministry will be able meet the challenges by the end of the year.