Odisha govt sets deadline for rural projects

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, May 27:

The Odisha government has directed the concerned officials of the Panchayati Raj department to expedite the various rural development projects in a time-bound manner for which deadline has been fixed.

During the first day of the two-day conference of the Project Directors of the department on Tuesday, the Panchayati Raj Minister Arun Sahu asked the officials to complete the ongoing projects by a cut-off date and create awareness among people about various schemes of the government.

According to data available, the government aims to complete 10, 13, 299 houses in 2015-16 fiscal where 60, 091 houses have already been completed. Besides, it directed the officials to clear the backlogs of 2013-14 financial year by the end of this June.

Notably, the state government has decided to transfer the money sanctioned to the beneficiaries under Biju Pucca Ghar Yojna and Indira Awas Yojna to their bank accounts directly from 2015-16 FY. For this, the government has set the deadline of May 31 to enrol the name of the beneficiaries.

Of the 312 block-level Customer Service Centres across the state, construction of 229 units have already been completed. In addition to this, 4472 Gram Panchayat-level service centres have been completed out of a total 6071 centres, the meeting revealed.

Further, the government has also set the deadline to complete the construction of Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras and Anganwadi Centres by July 15 and Sep 15 respectively.

Under MGNREGS, 760.06 lakh man-days will be created and around Rs 2336. 49 will be spent under this rural employment guarantee scheme.

The Project Directors have been instructed to personally supervise the projects and submit the utilisation certificates (UCs) in time.

Among others, Panchayati Raj Secretary DK Singh, Director (Special Projects) Nitin Bhanudas Jawale, Panchayati Raj Director Devendra Prasad Das and Odisha Employment Mission Director Pranab Jyoti Nath were present