As many as 47 villages in the Lakhimpur Kheri district sharing borders with Nepal would be developed as the first villages on the border under the Centre-sponsored Vibrant Village Programme II (VVP II) with all-weather road and telecommunication connectivity.
Kheri district magistrate Durga Shakti Nagpal told PTI, "Border security and border development must go hand in hand. Through the VVP II, we are strengthening the infrastructure and livelihood opportunities in these 47 villages, so as to elevate their living standards and to make our frontier communities strong, prosperous, and firmly rooted." The programme aims at infrastructure development, border-specific outreach activities and generation of better livelihood opportunities through promotion of tourism, cultural heritage and skill development, besides strengthening the local self-help groups, co-operative societies, youth and women, she said.
District statistics officer (DSTO) Arvind Verma told PTI that among the 47 border villages, 18 villages of the Pallia tehsil and 29 villages of the Nighasan tehsil are included.
"The planning department in UP would coordinate the implementation of the VVP II, which covers all border villages of Balrampur, Shrawasti, Maharajganj, Pilibhit, Bahraich and Kheri adjoining Nepal. A district-level committee headed by the Kheri district magistrate had been formed to ensure proper implementation of the programme," Verma said.
Meanwhile, a video conference meeting with the district authorities concerned was organised by the UP planning department a couple of days back to discuss the projects for the implementation of the VVP II in the state, officials said.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, furthering its commitment for the vision of Viksit Bharat@2047 for 'Safe, Secured and Vibrant land borders', the government approved the VVP-II on April 2, 2025 as a Central Sector Scheme, with an outlay of Rs 6,839 crore till FY 2028-29 for comprehensive development of the villages located in the blocks abutting international land borders, other than the northern border covered under VVP-I.
The programme shall be implemented in select strategic villages in the states/UTs of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, J&K (UT), Ladakh (UT), Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
The programme also aims to saturate all villages in such blocks in four thematic areas, namely all-weather road connectivity, telecom connectivity, television connectivity and electrification through convergence under existing scheme norms, the ministry said.
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