The Centre has tied up with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) "to ensure adequate extension of reforms in the industrial and financial services to the whole field of rural development". According to senior officials in the Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment, this ambitious project, recently cleared by the Standing Finance Committee, is to be implemented by the Department of Rural Development over a period of two years, from October 1998 to September 2000 with funding from the UNDP.