National level monitors (NLM) appointed by the rural development ministry to monitor the implementation of the various rural development schemes will be also be monitored from now, say the ministry’s the new guidelines.  

“The performance of each NLM, will be assessed annually and graded. This grading will be based on adherence to reporting guidelines and quality of reports as indicated in the Report Assessment and Quality Management System,” according to the guidelines.

The NLMs, who are retired senior civil/defence service officers and academia, are deputed to visit districts periodically, to monitor and report on various aspects of implementation of the rural development programmes.

In the allotted district, the NLMs are required to visit blocks/villages and interact with the beneficiaries to find out the impact of the schemes at the grassroot level.

With the coming up of the new guidelines NLM’s monitoring record will be reviewed.

The appraisal would be done by a committee which could consist of three experts from NIRD.

It would take a week or so to assess the quality of reports and will be assisted in this effort by an external agency.

Any NLM, including Institutional NLMs, who scores less than 70% in the grading will be removed from the panel of NLMs.

Grading of NLMs on each assignment will be maintained in a database to enable an overall ranking which can be used for deputing them for future assignments and disengaging the ones who are not up to the mark.

The performance of NLMs, who have already visited a district, will also be assessed by the officers of the ministry visiting such districts. The visiting officer will make an appraisal of the performance of the NLM, including his credibility and integrity on the basis of his own experience with the NLM during the visit and also based on formal/informal reports that may be received from the state level officer.