NT Reporter
Panaji
The central mines ministry has directed all the states to focus on utilising money collected under the District Mineral Fund (DMF) in five key areas of health and nutrition, education, agriculture, basic infrastructure and social development in the mining-affected villages.
Under health and nutrition, the fund must be spent on healthcare and welfare of women and children in mining-affected areas, the Centre has said. The DMF in agriculture must be used for projects in animal husbandry, irrigation and energy and watershed development.
For basic infrastructure, the money must be spent on sanitation, housing and basic infrastructure, while under social development, the fund should be channeled towards skill development and livelihood generation, says the central government
directive.
A letter addressed to the chief secretaries of all the states and Union territories mentions that states must align their DMF planning and implementation with the Aspirational District Programme (ADP) and the Aspirational Block Programme (ABP) laid down in the Pradhan Mantri Khanij Kshetra Kalyan Yojana (PMKKY) Guidelines, 2024.
“The convergence of state DMF projects with the ongoing central schemes will have a multiplier effect and strengthen outcomes for mining-affected communities,” said the Union ministry.
The PMKKY has categorised mining-affected areas into aspirational districts (AD) and aspirational blocks (AB).
Presently, there are 106 ADs and 473 ABs across mining states. There are a total of 654 districts in 23 states that have DMF corpus. A total Rs 1,09,423 crore has been collected under DMF so far. Goa’s DMF collection is Rs 239.4 crore as on May 31, this year.
The central circular has mandated planning and convergence of the DMF utilisation framework, monitoring of the projects and innovation in the ADB and the ABP programmes.
