Bhubaneswar: As many as 12,649 projects worth Rs 8074 crore have been taken up under District Mineral Fund (DMF) in various districts by end of July 2019, informed Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy at a high-level review committee in Lok Seva Bhawan here today.
The Chief Secretary, while reviewing the progress of the projects, urged concerned departments to prepare a five-year perspective action plan indicating the projects under DMF and advise the district Trusts to prioritize the works as per their local need.
Development Commissioner Suresh Chandra Mohapatra advised the departments to identify the critical gaps in ongoing programmes and plans and reflect those in the perspective plan.
Tripathy also insisted the departments of Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water, Rural Development, Water Resources and Works to deploy more technical manpower at the ground level through outsourcing for expeditious implementation of the projects.
Notably, majority of the projects sanctioned under DMF are within the orbit of these departments.
Chief Secretary directed to enhance the financial sanctioning power of the Superintending Engineers from Rs 4 crore to Rs 10 crore for quick sanction of the projects.
The progress of the projects at ground level would be regularly reviewed over video conferencing with the Collectors in each month.
Tripathy asked the Principal Secretaries and Secretaries of the departments having DMF projects to hold a meeting of the district level officers of their respective departments and orient them towards timely completion of the projects.
“The district-level officers including the departmental officers should have a clear cut vision of the projects”. Departments were advised to keep a tab of the projects for avoiding any possible duplication of allocations and maximise their outcomes”, the Chief Secretary said.
.District wise review of the programmes showed that the districts namely Angul, Jajpur, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar, Sundargarh. are the Top-Five districts in the matters of DMF collection and allocation. Out of total 12, 649 projects in different districts, these five districts have 11,126 projects. Angul district has 2918 number of projects estimated around Rs 1097 cr, Jajpur has 2691 projects of worth Rs 1125 cr, Jharsuguda has 638 projects of worth Rs 1125 cr, Keonjhar has 854 projects of worth Rs 2488 cr and, Sundargarh has 4025 projects estimated around Rs 2025 cr.
Joint Secretary Planning and Convergence Department, PK Mahakud informed that as of now, around Rs 7600 crore has been collected by various districts under DMF.
Out of this around Rs 8074 crore has been allocated against different projects by the respective district trusts.
The base works of the projects like survey, foundation, groundwork etc have been completed with the utilisation of around Rs 1900 crore, he said.