Friday, 07 July 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has directed the officers of Panchayati Raj department to expedite the process of making all the village Panchayats of Uttarakhand Open Defecation Free (ODF) plus. An ODF plus village is the one which has either solid or liquid waste management systems to sustain its ODF status.
He also directed that installation of solar lights in villages should be encouraged and computerisation of remaining Village Panchayats should be done. The CM gave these orders while undertaking a review meeting of the Rural development and Panchayati Raj departments at the State secretariat on Thursday. The meeting was held to review the progress of these departments in achieving targets under Empowered Uttarakhand @25 mission.
The CM said that the utilisation certificates (UC) and pending processes of the schemes funded in 90: 10 ratio by union government and state government respectively should be completed and sent to the central government. He sought details of the centrally sponsored schemes that are pending from 2020 and before it.
The CM told the officers of the rural development department to ensure better marketing of the local products and said that a system of online marketing should also be followed. Arrangements of maintaining supply of the products in demand should also be made.
He said that the locals should be given priority in the works being undertaken by the department in the rural areas. Dhami directed that the arrangement of revolving funds should be made in the schemes where there is some delay in the contribution of the Centre.
The officers informed the CM that a target of creation of 15 million man days has been taken under the MGNREGS in the financial year 2023-24. They claimed that appreciable work in the direction of water conservation is being done under the Amrit Sarovar scheme. The department claimed that work on a plan of convergence of different linear departments under MGNREGS is being done with an objective of doubling the income of the farmers. The officers informed that the department has taken a target to make 1.25 lakh Lakhpati Didi by the year 2025 and so far 40,000 Lakhpati Didis have been made.
The meeting was attended by the rural development minister Ganesh Joshi, additional chief secretary Radha Raturi, secretaries R Meenakshi Sundaram, Nitesh Jha, R Rajesh Kumar, additional secretary Anand Swarup, Nitika Khandelwal and others.
