Ramesh has given a green signal to the appointment of non-bureaucrats to top posts at CAPART that disburses Rs 100 crore annually to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), but has been criticised as a decadent and corrupt organisation. He has also accepted some key recommendations of a committee, set up two years ago under the chairmanship of Planning Commission member Mihir Shah, that were hanging fire due to opposition from bureaucrats.
The committee, set up by former rural development minister C P Joshi in 2009, had suggested CAPART be made autonomous, given a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore, and to induct professionals from banks, NGOs, institutions in rural development and other government departments, among other things.
“This was our radical suggestion to get professional hands into CAPART,'' said Ashwini Kumar, a social scientist with Tata Institute of Social Sciences and one of the experts in the committee. Read the full report here.
Source: Sreelatha Menon, Business Standard, New Delhi.
