Bhubaneswar: The state government has once again urged the Union government to enhance mobile connectivity and banking facility in all gram panchayats of 10 districts that have been included in Centre’s Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP).
State Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi requested Union Cabinet Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha to consider the long pending issue for the overall development of the people of the 10 Aspirational Districts during a videoconference.
ADP is an initiative of NITI Aayog for development of 115 backward districts in the country. The 10 Aspirational Districts are: Koraput, Gajapati, Nuapada, Kandhamal, Dhenkanal, Nabrangpur, Kalahandi, Bolangir, Malkangiri and Rayagada.
While apprising the senior Central official of the progress made so far in Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (GSA), Padhi mentioned that the main problem the Aspirational Districts faced was lack of mobile connectivity and banking facilities in most parts of these districts. “This hampers the progress of digital payment and financial inclusion,” Padhi said at the meeting.
The state government has nominated 10 secretary-level officers as in-charge of these districts. They are visiting the respective districts at least for two days a month and monitoring the developmental programmes included in ADP, sources said.
Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Secretary DK Singh has been appointed as the state nodal officer for the programme. During the meeting, Padhi said that state government has already taken proactive steps for carrying forward several activities specifically in sectors like education, health service, nutrition, skill development and agriculture development in the districts.
Each district has been provided with a corpus of Rs1 crore for hiring the services of retired doctors or locally available qualified doctors. Altogether 95 hospitals in all the 30 districts have been developed as First Referral Units (FRUs) for the patients from PHCs and CHCs, he said.
The state government urged the Union Cabinet Secretary to enhance the financial provisions for household electricity connection under Soubhagya Yojana from Rs 4500 to Rs 20,000 to meet all requirements, including service connections, wiring, additional poles etc. The state has also agreed to bear 40 per cent of this enhanced cost.
The sources said that seven programmes-Ujjawala Yojana, Saubhagya Yojana, Ujala Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, Surakshya Bima Yojana and Mission Indradhanush – will be implemented under GSA on saturation mode in the 10 Aspirational Districts.
The first phase of GSA was implemented in Odisha in eight districts from April to May, 2018. Sinha said that the performance of Odisha in the first phase was excellent. The GSA-special intervention will be implemented from June 1 to August 15, 2018.
