Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 29: Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who holds charge of the Planning and Development Department, has asked all chairpersons of the District Development Boards to start holding the DDB meetings immediately for review of the decision taken in the DDB meeting three months back and direct the District Development Commissioners (DDCs) to ensure expeditious implementation of the decisions.
“The Chairpersons of all 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir (Leh and Kargil not included) have been asked by the Chief Minister to start quarterly review of the DDB decisions immediately to review works undertaken under the district plan, Centrally Sponsored Schemes and other categories,” official sources told the Excelsior.
Accordingly, sources said, the DDB chairpersons were fixing up scheduled of the DDB meetings of their districts.
Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh, Incharge Power and Housing and Urban Development Department has called review meetings of Jammu and Samba districts, the two Boards he head, on September 30.
Dr Singh told the Excelsior that the review meetings would be held in two sittings just like the DDB meetings. In the first sitting, the Minister would review working of Jammu DDB while it would be the review of Samba DDB in the afternoon session.
Accordingly, the DDB chairpersons would line up the Board meetings of their districts for review. However, no review meeting would be held between October 3 to 10 during autumn session of the Legislature.
The Chief Minister will, however, not attend the DDB review meetings. However, he was likely to attend fourth meeting of the DDBs, which would be held in the first week of March. It may be mentioned here that the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister had attended all the DDB meetings, which were held in June-July for finalization of annual plan of the districts and finalize developmental works for current financial year of 2015-16.
Sources said the Chief Minister in his capacity as the Planning and Development Department Minister has called upon the DDB chairpersons to ensure that the DDBs adopt roadmap for the working ahead, which was implemented in letter and spirit to carry forward ‘development agenda’ of the Government.
“The DDBs will be asked to finalize the roadmap for development in remaining months of the current financial year and strictly go by it. The developmental works must be taken up and completed well in time and the funds under the district plan, Centrally Sponsored Schemes and other heads utilized properly,” sources said.
The DDB review meetings, which are being held after about three months from the first meeting in which the district plans were finalized, would review the action taken by the District Development Commissioners and other authorities during past about three months to initiate developmental works as identified in the Board meetings.
The review meetings will also finalize the roadmap of development for remaining six months of the current financial year.
“The roadmap will be devised in such a way that the works finalized for current financial year are taken up and completed well in time. The chairpersons have been asked by the Chief Minister to direct the DDCs to ensure that works undertaken under district plan and Centrally Sponsored Schemes are completed in time bound manner,” sources said.
This is for the first time that the DDB chairpersons will hold four meetings of the DDB in a year. The first meeting was held for plan finalization and setting out the priorities while there will be quarterly review of the meetings. Earlier, the DDB meetings were held only once in a year or twice a year sometimes. The second meeting was held in February-March for review.
Sources said the Government was of the view that quarterly review of the Board decisions would ensure that the developmental works didn’t suffer and the funds under various schemes are utilized properly.