District Development Boards (DDBs) are the most important basic units of development in our state. DDBs float and monitor the entire programme of development of the districts. Therefore, the development of a district depends on to what extent its Development Board is effective and pragmatic in implementing various plans and schemes of the Government. Usually, the Chief Minister or the Deputy Chief Minister presides over the annual Board meetings in which entire gamut of development is discussed and planned. The practice is that all Department Heads and Commissioner- Secretary of the departments, attend DDB meetings. These meetings take crucial decisions about district level plans.
After chairing several District Development Board meetings, the Chief Minister found that it as important to monitor the implementation of the schemes which the Board has recommended and for which there is the consent o the Legislative Assembly. The job of the Review Committee is to examine the progress made by the district in implementing the State sponsored or Centre sponsored plans and projects and the impact of completed projects on the people of the district in general. This is a very good decision and makes heads of the departments and many others answerable to the higher authorities.
However, review meetings have encountered serious obstructions, which could have adverse affect on the developmental activities in the districts. It is reported that many important officers including Heads of the Departments, Chief Engineers and Commissioner-Secretaries of many departments have developed the habit of skipping these meeting for one or the other reason. They are very responsible officers and without their presence, no proper assessment of the progress of development can be made. After all, the Head of the Department has the competence to brief the meeting on the level of progress made by the district in particular field pertaining to his department. District Commissioners have lodged several complaints that the meetings of the review committee have almost become a joke because of absence of many important senior Government officers.
Absence of important Government functionaries conveys the impression that they are not serious about the development of the districts and that they consider other business more important and urgent than attending the District Development Board review meetings. This is most unbecoming on the part of errant bureaucrats. We learn that the Chief Minister has disapproved the absence of important officers from the review meetings. Day in and day out, there are reports of many important and major developmental schemes sanctioned and sponsored by the Centre unable to keep the time schedule. They fall behind by several years. There are instances that senior officers come to know of closure of schemes much later after the schemes are actually closed or deferred. The Chairmen of Kupwara and Udhampur District Development Boards have taken the matter very serious. They feel that absentee officers have undermined the institution of DDB by skipping the review meetings without any plausible reason. The Chairmen of Kupwara and Udhampur District Development Boards have sought explanation from the absentee officers. The situation has become so critical that the Chairmen have issued directions for sending warning notes to such officers for mending their ways in future failing which they will have to face the music as the Government has decided not to allow slackness of the officers to create roadblocks in meeting the aspirations of the common masses. Obviously, if a Head of the Department fails to present himself at the crucial occasion of the Board Meeting, much important feedback on ongoing projects remains withheld from the committee. If crucial issue like construction of bridges, up-grading of roads, creation of tourism infrastructure, installation of HT/LT lines, poles, transformers, development of sports infrastructure, provision of basic amenities like drinking water and regular power supply, deployment of adequate manpower in public dealing Government offices and proper infrastructure and many more are deferred it brings disappointment to the people. In democracy, the administration is answerable to the people and the people are unsparing. There is a time when people expect their difficulties are mitigated. By going against the expectations of the people, these senior officers are creating embarrassing situation for themselves and for the Government. Since the chief minister and the deputy chief minister have chaired many of these meetings, it will not be surprising if the Government decides to replace the defaulting officers with more duty conscious and people caring officers from the cadres who will take their job of attending and contributing to the review meetings very seriously.
Follow our WhatsApp channel