JAMMU: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo today chaired the UT level Empowered Committee Meeting on the schemes of Rural Development Department (RDD) to discuss their annual plans for 2024-25 besides reviewing the performance made so far. Besides the Secretary RDD the meeting was attended by several Administrative Secretaries, HoDs of RDD and other concerned officers of the Department. While speaking in this meeting the Chief Secretary remarked that the Department has a vital function of raising the critical infrastructure in rural areas that has a bearing on the lives of the population there. He called on having a greater coordination between the departments to prioritize works that are most emergent in nature and in demand by the locals of the area. Dulloo further stressed on carrying out studies by the reputed institutions verifying the social impact of such projects on the lives of people there. He asked for carrying out third-party evaluation of such works to get the actual outcomes and benefits accruing to public on ground. As far as the working of J&K Rural Livelihood Mission (JKRLM) is concerned, the Chief Secretary impressed on providing the quality handholding to the SHGs immediately after their registration. He called on providing them the desirable counselling through social mobilization besides enhancing their capacity to enlarge their enterprises on commercial lines. The Chief Secretary also took stock of the performance made by the Department in PMAY(G), IWMP and Himayat schemes. He enjoined upon the concerned to meet the targets set under each scheme. He asked them to cover all the beneficiaries eligible under such housing and livelihood generation schemes. In his presentation the Secretary, RDD, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary gave out the gist of the performance made by the Department under different schemes during the ensuing financial year. He also threw light on the action plans proposed by the Department for the year 2024-25. The Secretary apprised the meeting that till now around 3.31 crore person days of work had been generated under MGNREGA which is 114% of the target set for the year. It was added that the fund utilization stands at an impressive rate of 97% this year. He further gave out that this year around 1,16,295 works had been completed and 2,95,834 works still going on at different stages of completion. Regarding the annual action plan 2024-25for MGNREGA it was revealed that the Department is going to augment the critical infrastructure in rural areas in convergence with this scheme. It was given out that the Department is going to accomplish around 195000 works with around 12000 works under convergence mode. Moreover the plan will lay focus on District Convergence Plans with extension of providing support to Departments either in augmenting their infrastructure. In addition focus on provisioning of common infrastructure for NRLM complaint SHGs besides empowering CLFs of JKRLM as PIAs in the FY 2024-25 aiming for holistic rural development. Among other features this year’s plan is aiming at allocating 44% of AAP to natural resources management works with an objective of sustainable development and environmental conservation. Under PMAY (G) the Department has completed 38,440 works and registered an expenditure of over Rs 1344 Cr this year. It was said the Department has completed 62,777 houses under both SECC and Awasplus this financial year aiming to complete 2,00,500 houses cumulatively. The meeting was also apprised about the performance of NRLM in the UT. It was said that 1.58 lakh lakh houses have been mobilized into SHGs upto January this FY. The department has provided the RF amount of Rs 1080.15 lakhs and CIF to the tune of Rs8949 lakhs till January. Under IWMP it was said that out of 19 projects sanctioned under WDC-PMKSY 2.0, DPRs of 16 have been prepared and approved by technical committee. While as under HIMAYAT the Department has trained 1247 candidates and has made an expenditure of Rs 12.84 Cr till February this year and is planning to train around 4900 candidates and place around 4000 of them in the year 2024-25, as was given out during this meeting.
