Cabinet Secretary discusses with Chief Secretary on Extended Gram Swaraj Abhiyan.
Nabarangpur and Nuadapa districts included in Aspirational District Programme.
CS apprised about the need for enhancing mobile Connectivity and Banking infrastructure.
Cabinet Secretary expressed satisfaction over the progress made in GSA
Bhubaneswar: June 01: Cabinet Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha over a video conferencing with Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi discussed regarding Extended Gram Swaraj Abhiyan ( GSA) to the aspirational districts in the State. Chief Secretary while appraising the progress made so far in the matter also placed the problems of aspirational districts. Padhi 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 as of now 10 districts namely Bolangir, Dhenkanal, Gajapati, Kandhamal, Koraput, Kalahandi, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Nuapada and Rayagada have been included in aspirational district programme. State Government has nominated 10 secretary level officers as Secretary-in-Charge of these districts. Secretary Health & Family Welfare Dr. Pramod Meherda, Additional Chief Secretary MSME Shri L. N. Gupta, Principal Secretary Excise Shri N.B. Dhal, Principal Secretary School & Mass Education Shri P. K. Mohapatra, Revenue & Disaster Management Dr. C.S. Kumar, Secretary Food Supplies & Consumer Welfare Shri V.V. Yadav, Principal Secretary Public Enterprises Shri Vijay Arora, Secretary Energy Shri Hemant Sharma, Principal Secretary Water Resources Pradeep Kumar Jena, Secretary Higher Education Bishnupada Sethi have been nominated against these districts respectively. 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.
Chief Secretary Padhi apprised that 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 Rs.1 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. State Government is providing around 570 essential drugs free of cost through its Niramaya scheme at all medical colleges, district, subdivisions, community and primary health centers. Free diagnostic services under the scheme Nidan have also been rolled out to the level of community health centers.
Further, Chief Secretary Sri Padhi suggested the Central Cabinet Secretary that the financial provisions for household electricity connection under Soubhagya Yojana may be raised from present level of Rs.4500/- to Rs.20,000/- to meet all requirements including service connections, wiring, additional poles etc . Sri Padhi also said that State Government would bear 40% of this enhanced cost on Center 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, Prdhan 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. Cabinet Secretary Sri Sinha said that the performance of Odisha in 1st phase was excellent. The GSA-Special Intervention will be implemented from 1st June to 15th August 2018.
Principal Secretary Finance Sri Tuhin Kanta Pandey , Principal Secretary Electronics & IT Sri Ashok Kumar Meena, Principal Secretary Panchayati Raj Sri D.K. Singh, Secretary Energy and I & PR Sri Hemant Sharma, Director National Health Mission Smt Shalini Pandit along with senior officers of concerned departments joined Chief Secretary in this video conference.
