Eight-month window for babus to deliver services

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Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Saturday stepped up his efforts for poll preparations by setting an eight-month deadline, purportedly before the next monsoon arrives, for babus to complete delivery of all people-centric programmes of his government.
Inaugurating a conference of collectors here, Patnaik said secretaries must visit districts in the first week of every month to ensure last mile delivery of services.
‘‘Priority programmes and schemes of the government shall be inspected in the field by the secretaries methodically,” the Chief Minister thundered at the conference.
“All supervisory officers right from the heads of departments to block-level extension functionaries must make intensive field visits,’’ he told the officials.
Guidelines in this regard would be reiterated by the concerned departments and performance of all officials would be reviewed by the secretaries and collectors, he indicated.
“My government will leave no stone unturned to make benefits of pro-people initiatives reach the last person. I am sure the secretaries, heads of departments and collectors present at the conference will give their best in providing the last mile service delivery to people,” he said.
Stating that governance should be people-centric, Patnaik said collectors were at the cutting edge of delivery of public services. He said he would review the performance of works related departments after a month.
“I will review the performance of the concerned departments after one month,” he indicated. He also sought a report on useful suggestions made at the previous collectors’ workshop in June.
Patnaik also announced a series of sops including setting up of science parks in district headquarters and extension of chemotherapy units in areas where incidence of cancer is high. He said 121 dialysis units will be set up in the districts. 8-month window for babus to deliver services
“About 300 fluoride-affected villages will be provided with filters in Nuapada district. Defunct lift points will be repaired on a priority basis in drought-affected areas,” he told reporters after the meet.
He said mega pipe water supply projects will be taken up in salinity-hit areas of three coastal districts – Bhadrak, Puri and Kendrapara. The government will sanction seven railway under-passes for Koraput district. The construction workers’ pensions will be decentralised from the state-levels to the district level.
As several VVIPs visit the Jagannath temple at Puri almost every day, the CM announced setting up of a separate protocol wing in the district so that the administration can focus on development works.
“The corpus fund in health which is sanctioned to KBK districts will now be extended to all tribal districts so that specialists can be hired,” he pointed out.
Reviewing 12 flagship programmes of the state government, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi advised collectors to reach out to people and cater to their expectation level.
“The main difference between 1980s and 2010s is the increasing expectations of people. Administration must rise up to cater to these expectations within the framework of law,” he proclaimed.
Since Aadhaar enrolment has crossed 90 per cent, Padhi advised collectors to link Aadhaar numbers with welfare schemes so that it would reduce duplication and possible leakages.