In a bid to promote sanitation across the country, the Centre is keen on prioritising waste management as a prime focus and is set to conduct training programmes for all panachayat members across the country, Union Minister for Rural Development, Drinking Water, Sanitation and Panchayati Raj Narendra Singh Tomar has said.

The Minister announced this while inaugurating the three-day BRICS conference on ‘participatory local budgeting’, which began here on Thursday.

TN model Panchayats in Tamil Nadu are generating income from waste management and this model can be adopted across the country. They convert the waste to fertiliser and the inconvertible waste utilised for other purposes.

This model has been implemented in 9,000 villages and they are generating around ₹40 lakh from the whole process.

This will eventually help alleviate poverty, the Union Minister said in his inaugural address. Local bodies should be empowered for sustained and comprehensive development of the nation. So the Centre has earmarked ₹2 lakh crore for panchayats in the 14th Finance Commission. The fund should be efficiently utilised for better projects aimed at the uplift of rural India, he said.

The three-day PLB conference, organised by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, has eminent experts from Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, besides elected representatives of local bodies from different states of the country. The conference is part of an ongoing effort to better synergise PLB initiatives in BRICS countries, cities and civic bodies through dialogue and cooperation.

Decentralisation Parsottambhai Rupala, Minister of State for Panchayati Raj, presided over the event. Though the participatory budgeting and decentralisation of India has grabbed international interest over the years, the conference aims to initiate dialogues and understand the international practices, he said.

KT Jaleel, State Minister for Local Self Government, highlighted the importance of Mahatma Gandhi and his contribution to the concept of decentralisation.

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