The government plans to allocate Bt20 billion for two major projects to improve the living standards of villagers nationwide in the next fiscal year, a senior official said yesterday.

The budget will come from the government's central fund and will go to provincial-level programmes to improve living standards and develop communities under the sufficiency economy theory, said Pongthep Tithapan, director of the Office for Development of Villages and Communities under Sufficiency Economy Philosophy.

The amount of funds to be allocated to the two projects is double the Bt10 billion allocated in the current fiscal year, said Pongthep, adding that his office has yet to determine the specific amount each project will be given from the 2008 budget.

The fiscal year begins in October.

Of the budget for sufficiency-economy projects, Bt145 million will be allocated to improve living standards of residents of 637 villages in the southern border provinces. About 20,000 villages in other parts of the country will also benefit from the 2008 budget, Pongthep said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham said yesterday the government planned to hold a brainstorming forum later this month to find ways to make the spending of the village funds initiated by the previous government more efficient.

The seminar is scheduled to be held from June 21 to June 23. Representatives of villages that have utilised their funds successfully will present their operating models for other communities to adopt, he said.

"We will discuss how to make village funds benefit everyone in these communities and thus lead to successful local development. The funds must not serve as a tool for politicians," Paiboon said.

A source said yesterday that the villager fund committee had received a report on problems in the management of the funds at its recent meeting. The report said many people had delayed repayment of loans they took from the village fund programme since they felt uncertain about the interim government's policy on continuing the village fund scheme, the source said. Poor understanding about the purpose of the village funds among the officials overseeing them had resulted in slow development of the programme, while database and support systems for the management of the funds are reportedly still lacking, the source said.

However, the village fund committee has acknowledged the problems and is trying to find quick and effective solutions, the source said.