Inviting applications for this year’s Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP), the Rural Development ministry has issued revised guidelines for the eligibility of the award making it mandatory for each application to be personally vetted by the secretary in-charge of sanitation of each state.

The NGP is given to the panchayati raj institutions for their exemplary performance on the sanitation front.   

The revised guidelines have been issued to curb the volume of bogus application that flood the rural development ministry every year.

“You may kindly go through the revised NGP guidelines that make it mandatory for each application to be explicitly certified by the state secretary in-charge of sanitation regarding his/her complete satisfaction as to the eligibility of the gram panchayat for the award,” says the letter written by the RD ministry to all the states last week.

Earlier the states forwarded each and every application received from gram panchayats to the R D ministry which in turn had to verify the claims made by the panchayats.  The majority of these applications turned out to be bogus.

During the first year of NGP (2004-05), 478 PRIs applied for the award out of which only 40 were found eligible. In 2005-06, out of 1582 applications, 769 were chosen. During 2006-07, 9,867 PRIs sent in applications, only 4,959 of them were found eligible for the award. In 2007-08 more than 30,563 applications were received for NGP award. Of these only 12,382 were found eligible for the award. Similarly out of 40,000 applications for 2008-09, 12075 were awarded.

A part of the Total sanitation Campaign run by the RD Ministry, NGP seeks to recognise the efforts made by PRIs towards ensuring full sanitation coverage in their areas of operation.

The cash reward varies from Rs 50,000 (at panchayat level) to Rs 50 lakhs (at Zila Parishad).

The last date for the submission of the application is April 30.