Odisha Tops In RIDF Disbursement

Bhubaneswar: Odisha has topped the list in disbursement of Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) performance in 2017-18 fiscal.

This was revealed at a high-level meeting presided over by additional chief secretary and development commissioner R Balakrishnan at the State Secretariat here on Wednesday.

Present at the meeting, Chief General Manager (CGM) NABARD, Dr Krushna Chandra Panigrahi outlined the issues for discussion.

The Committee further recommended additional 14,346 of projects worth Rs 10,328 crore for 2018-19.

Reviewing the performances during the year 2017-18, Balakrishnan directed the departments to expedite raising of their claims to NABARD against the ongoing projects expedite submission of the DPRs of the spillover and newly sanctioned projects.

As per the available data, RIDF is being implemented for completion of the ongoing and incomplete infrastructure development projects in the state. The fund is being supported by RIDF corpus managed by NABARAD and state government’s own contribution in almost 85:15 share basis.

During 2017-18, 14,455 projects estimated around Rs 5514 crore were recommended under RIDF against which 2351 projects of worth Rs 2539 crore were sanctioned. Against this sanctioned amount, different departments utilized around Rs 3872 crore during 2017-18 from the state government budgeted funds.

It may be pertinent here to mention that claims against RIDF are generally raised to NABARD by the departments after making the actual utilization at the ground level.

NABARD has disbursed around Rs 2512 crore to the state government from RIDF against the claims made by various departments during the year 2017-18 which is highest among all the states at national level. As per the figures presented by the NABARD, Odisha tops the list with Rs 2512.36 crore disbursement followed by Gujarat with Rs 2062.91 crore and Rajasthan with Rs 1851.39 crore disbursement.

Presently, the number of infrastructure development projects under RIDF is being implanted through the departments of Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment (1485), Water Resources ( 671), Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water (175), Works (6) and Rural Development making a grand total of 2351 projects.

So far, around 60 percent of the projects under RIDF have been completed and balance projects are in progress.

Deputy Chief General Manager, NABARD Narayan Chandra Pani informed that the NABARD Regional Office, Bhubaneswar has bagged the Best Performance Award for the year 2017-18 for diversified project lending in which RIDF is a major component.

Principal Secretary, General Administration Ashok Kumar Meena, Principal Secretary, Water Resources Pardeep Kumar Jena, Principal Secretary, Agriculture Sourav Garg, Principal Secretary, Commerce & Transport G Srinivas, Secretary, Fisheries and Animal Resource Development Vishal Gagan, Additional Secretary, Panchayati Raj Roopa Mishra, Additional Secretary, Planning & Convergence Debendra Kumar Jena, senior officials of NABARD and concerned department officials of the state government participated in discussions.