Odisha Govt Nominates Top Officials For 10 Aspirational Districts

Secretariat secretarBhubaneswaBhubaneswar: The Odisha government has nominated senior bureaucrats as secretary-level officers as secretary-in-charge of 10 aspirational districts.

This was revealed during a video conferencing between Cabinet secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha and chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi on Extended Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (GSA) on Friday.

Apprising the cabinet secretary of the progress made so far in the matter also placed the problems of aspirational districts, the chief secretary mentioned that the main problem that the aspirational districts face is the lack of mobile connectivity and banking facilities in major part of the districts.

This hampers the progress of digital payment and financial inclusion. He pressed the need for enhancing mobile connectivity and banking infrastructure in Odisha.

Discussions in the meeting reveal that 10 districts namely Bolangir, Dhenkanal, Gajapati, Kandhamal, Koraput, Kalahandi, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Nuapada and Rayagada have been included in aspirational district programme.

The state government has nominated 10 secretary-level officers as secretary-in-charge of these districts.

The officials who have been nominated by the state government are secretary, Health & Family Welfare Dr Pramod Meherda, additional chief secretary MSME LN Gupta, principal secretary, Excise NB Dhal, principal secretary, School & Mass Education PK Mohapatra, Revenue & Disaster Management Dr CS Kumar, Secretary, Food Supplies & Consumer Welfare VV Yadav,  principal secretary, Public Enterprises Vijay Arora, secretary, Energy Hemant  Sharma, principal secretary, Water Resources Pradeep Kumar Jena, secretary and Higher Education Bishnupada Sethi.

These State Level officers are visiting the respective districts at least for 2 days in a month and monitoring the developmental programmes included under asiprational district programme.

Secretary, Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water Deoranjan Kumar Singh has been appointed as the State Nodal Officer for the programme.

The chief secretary informed that the state government, in its own system, has taken proactive steps for carrying forward several activities specifically in the sectors like education, health services, nutrition, skill and agriculture development.

Each district has been provided with a corpus fund of Rs1 cr for hiring the services of retired doctors or locally available qualified doctors. A total number of 95 hospitals in all 30 districts have been developed as First Referral Units (FRUs) for the patients from PHCs and CHCs.

The state government is providing around 570 essential drugs free of cost through its Niramaya

scheme at all medical colleges, district, sub-divisions, community and primary health centres.  Free diagnostic services under the scheme Nidan have also been rolled out to the level of community health centres.

Padhi suggested the Cabinet secretary that the financial provisions for household electricity connection under Soubhagya Yojana may be raised from the present level of Rs 4500- to Rs 20,000  to meet all requirements including service connections, wiring, additional poles etc.

He also said that the state government would bear 40% of this enhanced cost on Centre- State sharing basis.

It may be pertinent here to mention that 7 programmes viz. Ujjawala Yojana, Saubhagya Yojana, Ujala Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana,  Surakshya Bima Yojana and Mission Indradhanush will be implemented under GSA on saturation mode in these 10 aspirational districts.

The first phase of GSA was implemented in Odisha in 8 districts from April to May 2018.

The Cabinet secretary said that the performance of Odisha in the first phase was excellent. The GSA-Special Intervention will be implemented from June 1 to August 15 this year.

Principal secretary, Finance Tuhin Kanta Pandey, principal secretary, Electronics & IT Ashok Kumar Meena, principal secretary, Panchayati Raj DK Singh, secretary, energy and I&PR Hemant Sharma, director, National Health Mission Shalini Pandit along with senior officers of concerned departments joined the chief secretary in the video conferencing.