26 May : Six districts of Bihar were selected under a joint Government of India-United Nations (UN) programme on convergence to meet Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for the 11th five-year plan. These districts include Vaishali, Nalanda, Gaya, Bhagalpur, Purnea and Supaul. The GOI-UN programme on Convergence, as it is called, provides technical assistance in the districts to leverage better utilisation of government resources for implementation of national flagship programmes in the state, UNICEF sources said.
A high-level meeting, chaired by the district magistrates of Nalanda and Gaya on GOI-UN programme on convergence held at Nalanda and Gaya district collectorates, recently.
State Planning and Development department’s Principal Secretary, Rameshwar Singh, apart from all district-level government functionaries attended the meeting which also participated by the UN team, led by Bijaya Rajbhandari, chief of field office, UNICEF office for Bihar and representatives of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), sources said.
Addressing the meeting, Singh said there was a need to prepare a perspective plan on speedy development of districts in Bihar. "All government department officials have been asked to furnish details of their work, plan," he said.
Singh expressed concern over lack of coordinated approach to development in a district despite large allocations under the head of development.