Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Aug 9: As brief working season has been left for execution of developmental works, Government has directed the District Development Commissioners (DDCs) to convene the District Development Board (DDB) meetings at the earliest and finalize the current year’s district plan. Moreover, the DDCs have also been asked to work out separately the requirement of funds to fulfill the major commitments made by the Government.
Authoritative sources told EXCELSIOR that Planning and Development Department vide its communication No.Plan/PD /DDB/2014-15 dated August 8 has directed the District Development Commissioners to take immediate steps for holding the DDB meeting at the earliest in consultation with the respective Chairman so that the current year plan is finalized/approved for the implementation.
“In the Budget of 2014-15, an amount of Rs 7300 crore has been proposed under State Plan and based on the Budgeted figures, the sector wise ceiling of each district has been worked out and conveyed along with the guidelines”, said the communication, the copy of which is available with EXCELSIOR.
“The District Development Commissioners are required to formulate scheme-wise breakup of each sector as per the ceilings conveyed”, the communication said, adding “the plan documents are then required to be got approved/finalized by the respective District Development Boards”.
The DDB meetings are considered to be very significant since new development works to be undertaken in the districts are identified by the people’s representatives including concerned Members of Parliament (MPs), legislators (both MLAs and MLCs) and Ministers etc.
As per the guidelines already conveyed by the Planning and Development Department to the District Development Commissioners, open ended schemes with lumpsum provision shall be dispensed with and shall be provided for the identified schemes only. “No allocation under projectization (SPA) shall be provided for items such as desilting, repair of transformers, maintenance, repairs, information, publicity, trainings, field functions/fairs and consultancies etc”, the guidelines said, adding “the State share for Centrally Sponsored Schemes/Tied Grants and Negotiated Loans both for ongoing projects and those to be implemented afresh, shall be the first charge on plan and provided fully”.
Through these guidelines, the State Government has also laid thrust on incorporation of all aspects relating to gender sensitivity and gender-budgeting in the formulation of plans, sources informed.
“As major focus of the District Plan remains on completion of ongoing works and Planning and Development Department has restricted the DDCs to start new works till the completion of ongoing works in the particular department, there remain meager funds to give practical shape to the major commitments of the Ministers/ Government”, sources said, adding “keeping this in view the Planning and Development Department has verbally conveyed to the District Development Commissioners that they shall separately communicate to the department the requirement of funds to fulfill these commitments”.
It would be only on having exact requirement of funds in this regard that Planning and Development Department would work out modality for releasing additional funds, sources said.
They further disclosed that Planning and Development Department has also hinted that some districts may get additional funds over and above the annual district plan.
It is pertinent to mention here that during last financial year an additional allocation of Rs 36 crore was made for Srinagar district and following protest by the Ministers from Jammu district, the Government even released additional Rs 34 crore in favour of Jammu.
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