Odisha Cabinet Approves Guidelines For Ama Gaon Ama Bikash Yojana

Bhubaneswar: The State Cabinet on Monday approved the guidelines for the Ama Gaon Ama Bikash Yojana launched by the Odisha government.

Briefing the media after the meeting, which was presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the State Secretariat, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi said the cabinet has approved specific guidelines for the proper implementation of the scheme of the state government which has been launched during 2018-19 fiscal.

The major objective of the scheme is to take up construction of new projects which will contribute to the overall development of community and well-being of the general public, he added.

According to the approved guidelines, the local people, community organizations, public representatives, government officials and other stake holders shall identify and can suggest the required projects to bridge the gap in the infrastructure development which is not taken out of any other state/Central government schemes. The projects shall be original in nature and approved by the Chief Minister.

Requisite funds in respect of approved projects shall be sanctioned by the department to the PL (profit and loss) account of the concerned District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) while the project director (PD), DRDA shall draw in grants-in-aid bill and transfer the same to the PL account of the concerned Panchayat Samiti on receipt of the approved project list in two installments (52% and 48%) by calculating the sanctioned project cost.

The projects under Ama Gaon Ama Bikash Yojana will be executed departmentally.

The budget provision for the scheme is pegged at Rs 1250 crore for the 2018-19 fiscal. The Planning the Convergence department has provided Rs 75 crore with Rs 2.5 crore for each DRDA during 2017-18 fiscal.

The chief secretary said out of the total approved cost of the project, 2 percent shall be utilized as administrative contingency of which 1 percent has been earmarked for the Block while 0.5 percent each is earmarked for the DRDAs and the administrative department to incur expenditure like convening meetings, social audit, site inspection, photograph of the projects in different stages of video  conferencing, IEC (information, education and communication) activities, data entry, mobile support, MIS (management information system), PMU (power management unit), procurement of  computer, printer  with  scanner and  Xerox  etc. with proper financial  procedure.

The district collector concerned has been authorized to engage Data Entry Operator in the Blocks where the scheme is completed through approved service providing agencies to maintain case record, typing of project list and uploading of data in Ama Gaon Ama Bikash Yojana software.

The ceiling limit for a project costs between Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh and shall be executed by the Panchayat Samiti departmentally after following due procedure. However, the government may relax the ceiling limit in exceptional cases, Padhi, said adding that the provision of GST shall not be applicable for departmental execution of the work.

The district collector shall be overall charge of supervision and monitoring of the work under the scheme. The PD, DRDA, District Planning Officer, District Panchayat Officer and Block Development Officers of the concerned district shall review the progress of the work in every fortnight and apprise the same to the collector. The PD, DRDA shall submit UC (utilization certificate) to the government in the Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water department on every quarter duly countersigned by the collector.

The projects approved by the government shall be completed within one year from the date of approval of the project. The asset created shall be the asset of the Gram Panchayat/ Panchayat Samiti for future maintenance.

In case no expenditure has been made within six months from the date of issue of work order, the funds shall be diverted to some other project as decided by the government, Padhi said.

However, if any project taken up initially under any other scheme of the government and remains incomplete due to dearth of funds, the additional required funds for its completion may be considered out of this sanctioned amount on priority basis subject to the condition that the total sanction does not exceed the ceiling limit, he pointed out.