IAS OUR DREAM: February 2012

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

SAARC University

The South Asian University is an International University sponsored by the eight Member States of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

The eight countries are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The vision of a world-class South Asian University to be collectively established by SAARC was first outlined by the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh at the 13th SAARC Summit in Dhaka in 2005.

The main campus in New Delhi will be hosting nearly 5,000 students and an international faculty. It will also have campuses in all other seven SAARC countriesâ€”Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.

The formal Agreement to establish the University was signed on 4 April 2007. Thereafter, experts and officials of the eight countries prepared the governance structure, academic plan and business development model of the University.

First academic session of the university started in August 2010 with two post-graduate academic programmes, one each in Economics and Computer Sciences.

Four additional post-graduate academic programmes in Law, Sociology, International Relations and Biotechnology are expected to commence from July 2011. Additional programmes will be added in due course.

Objectives of SAU

The mandate of the South Asian University, as set out in the Agreement of the SAARC Member States under which the University has been set up envisages that the University should:

enhance learning in the South Asian community that promotes an understanding of each other’s perspectives and strengthen regional consciousness;
provide liberal and humane education to the brightest and the most dedicated students of South Asia so that a new class of quality leadership is nurtured; and
enhance capacity of the South Asian nations in science, technology and other areas of higher learning vital for improving their quality of life.

These three elements, i.e. building a culture of understanding and regional consciousness; nurturing a new class of liberal, bright and quality leadership and building the capacity of the region in science, technology and other disciplines considered vital for improving the quality of life of the people, therefore, form the core objectives of the South Asian University.

The Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme (BRGF)

BRGF --- The Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme

BRGF was launched by the Prime Minister at Barpeta in Assam on 19th February 2007.

---The programme subsumed the Rashtriya Sama Vikas Yojana (RSVY), a scheme earlier being administered by the Planning Commission.

---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.

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:

a) Bridge critical gaps in local infrastructure and other development requirements that are not being adequately met through existing inflows,
b) 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,
c)Provide professional support to local bodies for planning, implementation and monitoring their plans,
d)Improve the performance and delivery of critical functions assigned to Panchayats, and counter possible efficiency and equity losses on account of inadequate local capacity.

Three unique features of BRGF:

i)the approach of putting the Panchayats and the Municipalities at the centre stage of planning and implementation;
ii) no Central funding stream is as ‘untied’ as the BRGF – the funds can be applied to any preference of the Panchayat/ Municipality, so long as it fills a development gap and the identification of the work is decided with people’s participation;
iii) no other programme spends as much funds, nearly 11 percent of the total allocation, for capacity building and staff provisioning.

BRGF contains a specific component for the capacity building of Panchayati Raj Institutions of Rs. 250 crore per year.

The planning process under BRGF is based on the guidelines for district planning issued by the Planning Commission in August 2006 and January, 2009.

Courtesy - Ved Vrat