* Chairs meet to approve plans for RDD schemes
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 15: In a significant step towards addressing the burgeoning issues of Housing and Urban Development Department (H&UDD) in the UT, a high-level meeting was today chaired by Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo and attended by the Commissioner Secretary, H&UDD; Commissioner Secretary, Tourism besides other HoDs of the Housing and Rural Development Departments here.
The Chief Secretary directed that all the urban development projects, currently in the pipeline be expedited, placing public welfare as the foremost priority. This directive underlines the Government’s commitment to not only enhancing the urban infrastructure, but also ensuring that, these developments translate into tangible benefits for the residents of Jammu and Kashmir.
During this meeting, the Commissioner Secretary, H&UDD, Mandeep Kaur briefed the chair on a spectrum of pivotal developments and upcoming initiatives aimed at transforming the urban landscape of J&K.
The progress updates and future plans concerning the Jammu Metropolitan Region Development Authority (JMRDA) and the Srinagar Metropolitan Region Development Authority (SMRDA), focusing on comprehensive urban development and planning were deliberated upon. It was given out that these projects would bring in futuristic mobility services to our cities bringing lot of ease to the commuters here.
The meeting also took note of the status of the newly built state-of-the-art, multi-tier parking at Bus Stand in Jammu. It emphasised upon its optimum utilization for bringing ease and employment to public besides realizing revenue for Government also.
Meanwhile, Chief Secretary chaired the UT level Empowered Committee Meeting on the schemes of Rural Development Department (RDD) to discuss their annual plans for 2024-25 besides reviewing the performance made so far.
Besides the Secretary RDD the meeting was attended by several Administrative Secretaries, HoDs of RDD and other concerned officers of the Department.
Dulloo stressed on carrying out studies by the reputed institutions verifying the social impact of such projects on the lives of people there. He asked for carrying out third-party evaluation of such works to get the actual outcomes and benefits accruing to public on ground.
As far as the working of J&K Rural Livelihood Mission (JKRLM) is concerned, the Chief Secretary impressed on providing the quality handholding to the SHGs immediately after their registration. He called on providing them the desirable counselling through social mobilization besides enhancing their capacity to enlarge their enterprises on commercial lines.
The Chief Secretary also took stock of the performance made by the Department in PMAY(G), IWMP and Himayat schemes. He enjoined upon the concerned to meet the targets set under each scheme. He asked them to cover all the beneficiaries eligible under such housing and livelihood generation schemes.
In his presentation the Secretary, RDD, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary gave out the gist of the performance made by the Department under different schemes during the ensuing financial year. He also threw light on the action plans proposed by the Department for the year 2024-25.
Regarding the annual action plan 2024-25 for MGNREGA it was revealed that the Department is going to augment the critical infrastructure in rural areas in convergence with this scheme. It was given out that the Department is going to accomplish around 195000 works with around 12000 works under convergence mode.
Moreover the plan will lay focus on District Convergence Plans with extension of providing support to Departments either in augmenting their infrastructure. In addition focus on provisioning of common infrastructure for NRLM complaint SHGs besides empowering CLFs of JKRLM as PIAs in the FY 2024-25 aiming for holistic rural development.
Under PMAY (G) the Department has completed 38,440 works and registered an expenditure of over Rs 1344 Cr this year. It was said the Department has completed 62,777 houses under both SECC and Awasplus this financial year aiming to complete 2,00,500 houses cumulatively.
The meeting was also apprised about the performance of NRLM in the UT. It was said that 1.58 lakh houses have been mobilized into SHGs upto January this FY. The department has provided the RF amount of Rs 1080.15 lakhs and CIF to the tune of Rs 8949 lakhs till January.
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