Jammu: Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam Friday made it clear that capital won’t be a constraint to transform the State’s developmental landscape, as the Government of India is liberal in devolution of resources to the State.
“Just focus on improving operational efficiency of spending and timely submission of utilization certificates, you will see seamless flow of funds for development,” the Chief Secretary told a joint meeting of the senior officers of the Central and the State Government here this morning.
The visiting team of the Central Government officers who were present at the meeting included Gyanesh Kumar, Additional Secretary Union Ministry of Home Affairs (J&K); Maneesh Garg, Joint Secretary, Department of School Education, Union Ministry of Human Resource Development; Manish Kumar, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, National Skill Development Corporation; Anju Nigam, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and others.
The Chief Secretary said the Government of India is more than willing to walk extra-mile in making available adequate resources to J&K for developmental initiatives to spur the State’s socio-economic growth. “We have to have the capacity and the motivation to spend these funds productively within the set timelines,” he said and added that as a follow-up to the October 23 visit of the Union Home Minister to Srinagar, groups of senior central officers shall be visiting J&K regularly to jointly review with the State Government officials progress on implementation of various centrally funded programs and projects.
Chief Secretary said the joint review meetings shall not only address the bottlenecks and resource availability, but also ensure on-the-spot decisions on such issues which otherwise keep on lingering for want of timely decision thus hampering the overall developmental process.
The issues that came up for discussion in the meeting included progress on PMDP projects, advancement of school education system in the state through technological interventions, opening of new KendriyaVidyalyas and Jawahar NavodayaVidyalyas in uncovered areas, progress on skill development front under Himayat, Udaan and Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, construction of accommodation for migrant employees, disbursement of relief to displaced persons, construction of bunkers along the border, financial assistance to the victims of violence, recruitment in new IRP, Women Police and Border Police battalions and engagement of SPOs.
From the State Government the meeting was attended by Principal Secretary Home, R K Goyal, Director General Police, Dilbag Singh, Commissioner Secretary, PWD, Khurshid Ahmad Shah, Divisional Commissioner Jammu, Sanjeev Verma, Secretary Rural Development Department, Sheetal Nanda, Secretary School Education, A K Sahu, Secretary Youth Services & Sports and Information Sarmad Hafeez and other concerned officers.
The visiting Central officers also held separate meetings with the officials from the concerned state government departments to comprehensively take stock of the issues hampering the centrally funded developmental initiatives.
In the evening the joint wrap-up meeting was chaired by the Advisor to the Governor K Vijay Kumar to take a holistic review of the issues that cropped up during the visit of the Govt of India delegation.
