Energy dept ultimatum to collectors on DPRs for RGGVY

Reported by Chinmaya Dehury/Edited by Sandeep Sahu

Bhubaneswar, Sep 1:

At the receiving end of flak from the Union Ministry of Power over the delay in implementing the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutkaran Yojana (RGGVY), the state government has asked district Collectors to submit the detailed project reports (DPR) by September 30 or risk losing fund coming under the central scheme.

With the Ministry of Power insisting on timely submission of DPRs, the state Energy department has repeatedly asked the district Collectors to submit the reports for onward transmission of the same to the Centre for sanction of funds. However, despite repeated reminders from the department, most of the districts have not submitted DPRs to the State Government.

“Unless you submit the DPR (detailed project report) by the deadline given by the Government of India, possibly your district may lose the funds to be allotted under the 12th Plan for which you will be squarely responsible,” read a circular from Energy Secretary PK Jena to all district Collectors asking them to submit the DPRs by September 30.

In a recent communication, the Ministry of Power had asked the State Government to submit DPRs in time failing which the State may lose Central assistance.In the 12th plan, DPRs shall be prepared and submitted for approval based on actual field survey and scheduled of rates to avoid any revision in cost estimates.

The State-level committees will scrutinise the proposals submitted by the districts and recommend the same to the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) for its appraisal latest by October 15. The REC will then recommend the proposals to the monitoring committee of the ministry for approval.
After approval of the proposals by the monitoring committee, awarding of contracts to the project implementing agencies should be completed within three months and projects are to be completed within 24 months.
According to sources, the process of awarding contracts for rural electrification projects for the 12th Plan period should be completed by March, 2014. As per the revised target of the Centre, all villages having population of 100 or more should be energised by the end of the current Plan period.
Though the Centre had set a deadline to complete the rural electrification by the end of the 11th Plan, it failed to do so due to lack of capacity and manpower of the project implementing agencies.
The primary objective of the scheme is to provide electricity to left out villages having population of 100 and above along with the BPL households which were provided electricity free of cost.