Patna, Aug. 12: Rural women of 10 districts are set to get support under Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP), a part of the National Rural Livelihood Mission.

The Centre has approved three projects from Bihar under the scheme. Their implementation would extend technical and other kinds of support to 1.90 lakh rural women in select blocks of Khagaria, Purnea, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Gaya, Nalanda, Madhepura, Saharsa, Supaul and Jamui districts.

Apart from the state rural development department, two non-government organisations — Asha and Pradan — had submitted projects to the Centre through the Bihar Rural Livelihood Projects (BRLP). While the Centre has approved a project worth Rs 97.60 crore for the rural development department, projects worth Rs 13.17 crore and Rs 14 crore have been sanctioned for Asha and Pradan, respectively.

All the three projects would be implemented by the BRLP. The project duration would be of three years. There would be an in-built mechanism to assess the impact of the project implementation.

The Centre would bear 75 per cent of the project cost. The agency awarded the project would have to mobilise the remaining fund.

Rural development minister Nitish Mishra told The Telegraph: “We had submitted the project because the state government stands for economic empowerment of rural women after having taken steps in the past for their political empowerment.”

Mishra said Bihar was the first state to reserve half of the seats of panchayati raj institutions for women. “The upcoming project would give financial freedom to the rural women contributing in a big way to the agriculture sector on a regular basis,” the rural development minister said.

Giving details about the upcoming project, BRLP chief executive officer Arvind Kumar Chaudhary said: “The thrust will be on promoting systematic crop intensification so that optimum productivity of a crop could be achieved through implementation of this project.”

“The actual benefit of the project would be delivered in the rabi crop season. The next few months would be used for selecting the beneficiaries. Preference would be given to those associated with self-help groups,” Chaudhary said.

The beneficiaries of this project would get intensive technical support for getting the desired input and they would also be provided inputs as part of demonstration. Village level resource persons would be deputed to provide continuous support to the beneficiaries.