PudhuVaazhvu

Pudhu Vaazhvu Project is an empowerment and poverty alleviation project implemented by the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj department of Government of Tamilnadu with World Bank assistance. The project is implemented over a 6 year period extended upto September 2014 at an outlay of Rs 717 crores. The Project covers 2509 village panchayats in 70 Backward Blocks in 16 districts. Though the project was launched in November 2005,effective implementation has commenced only from August 2006.Now with additional financing, the project has expanded its operations to 10 more additional districts covers 1665 VPs in 50 backward blocks till September 2016 with an outlay of Rs.950 crores.
The target population of this Project are the poor households, the most vulnerable sections including the physically challenged and the marginalized communities. The project follows the CDD approach wherein village communities identify their own needs, design and plan interventions and implement and monitor them by adopting key nonnegotiable principles of the project. There is a strong sense of ownership of the project among the community members.