*Reviews progress on solarization of Govt buildings
Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, June 10: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, today chaired a meeting to review implementation of flagship Holistic Agriculture Development Programme (HADP) in the Union Territory.
Among others the meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, APD, VC SKUAST J/K, MD, HADP, Deputy Commissioners, HoDs in APD, representatives from J&K Bank besides other concerned officers while Jammu based officers participated online.
The meeting had detailed discussion on status of applications by the farmers in different districts, their skilling through Daksh Kisan portal, extension of credit to farmers by financial institutions and project-wise updates reflecting their progress over a period of time.
The Chief Secretary asked the officers to work for substantially raising the number of applications with corresponding increase in percentage of approvals. “It may not be impractical to aspire that at least 15-20% of farmers should register themselves in one of the dozens of attractive activities being offered under HADP”, he maintained.
As far as the role of Agricultural Universities is concerned, the Chief Secretary enjoined upon them to come up with requisite solutions through research, timely advice, technical expertise and extension for maximization of benefits out of this holistic programme.
Regarding skilling of registered farmers on Daksh Kisan Portal, Dulloo stressed on creation of quality video content by the concerned faculty members of our farm Universities. He also asked them to upload as many demonstration videos as required for all the newly identified courses under this development programme.
Dulloo also took stock of progress on establishment of Spice Park at Kishtwar, acquiring of NMR technology for honey testing, handholding of FPOs, creation of baseline survey, promotion of organic farming, vermi-composting, coverage of Artificial Insemination, training of Maitris, capacity building of manpower and introduction of modern technology for large scale development of agriculture in J&K.
In his address, Principal Secretary, Agriculture Production Department, Shailendra Kumar, pointed out few of the issues faced in implementation of this programme. He also suggested certain measures to be taken for its smooth implementation and the roadmap for making the process more result-oriented for times to come.
Mission Director, HADP, Yasha Mudgal, in a presentation threw light on the overall performance of this holistic development programme along with activity wise progress registered during the previous and current financial years.
During the meeting, the district-wise ranking for the month of May was released. The criteria adopted for ranking comprises of scale of applications, their pendency, approval rates and proportion of farmers skilled by imparting training on Daksh Kisan Portal.
Among the districts Shopian has been ranked first followed by Pulwama at second and Bandipora at third place. The other districts in order of merit are Ganderbal at 4th, Budgam 5th, Kulgam 6th, Anantnag, Udhampur, Reasi and Kathua at 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th place respectively.
The bottom 10 districts included Poonch at 11th position followed by Kishtwar, Kupwara, Jammu, Baramulla, Ramban, Srinagar, Samba with Doda at 19th and Rajouri at the bottom of the ranking table.
Meanwhile, Chief Secretary chaired meeting to review progress achieved, so far, in solarisation of Government buildings in the Union Territory.
The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Power Development Department, Principal Secretary, Finance, Commissioner Secretary, Science & Technology, Managing Director, JPDCL/KPDCL, Chief Executive Officer, JAKEDA, representatives from JaKeGA, NHPC besides other concerned officers while officers stationed at Jammu participated online.
Dulloo, while highlighting the significance of this prestigious project towards streamlining power scenerio, stressed on framing a vibrant implementation strategy in sync with availability of resources, manpower and allied capacities of the department. In this regard, he called for conducting a thorough analysis of all the available models adopted by different States and UTs so that the best suitable can be replicated in J&K.
The Chief Secretary asked for maintaining close coordination with the PDD Discoms for evacuation of surplus energy and realization of revenue indicating roles for each of the associated partners.
In his presentation, Commissioner Secretary, S&T, Saurabh Bhagat, detailed out the implementation strategy framed by the department for 100 percent solarization of Government buildings in the UT. He also gave brief account about the institutional set-up put in place by the department to achieve this milestone professionally.
The meeting was also apprised that out of the total of 32,016 Government buildings, 22,494 had been found feasible for solarisation. Besides, 17 percent of buildings had already been taken-up and completed by JAKEDA, so far, making the UT among the top performers at national level.
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