Union Cabinet Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha over a videoconferencing with State Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi on Friday discussed the Extended Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (GSA) to the aspirational districts in the State.
Padhi while appraising about the progress made so far in the matter also placed the problems of aspirational districts. He said the main problem the aspirational districts face is the lack of mobile connectivity and banking facilities in major part of the districts. This hampers the progress of digital payment and financial inclusion.
Ten districts, Balangir, Dhenkanal, Gajapati, Kandhamal, Koraput, Kalahandi, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Nuapada and Rayagada, have been included in the aspirational district programme. The State Government has nominated 10 Secretary-level officers as Secretaries-in-Charge of these districts. These officers are visiting the respective districts at least for two days in a month and monitoring the developmental schemes included under the programme. Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water Secretary Deoranjan Kumar Singh has been appointed as the State Nodal Officer for the programme.
The Chief Secretary apprised that the State Government has taken proactive steps for carrying forward several activities, specifically in the sectors like education, health services, nutrition, skill growth and agriculture development. Each district has been provided with a corpus fund of Rs 1 crore for hiring services of retired doctors or locally available qualified doctors.
A total of 95 hospitals in all 30 districts have been developed as First Referral Units (FRUs) for the patients from PHCs and CHCs. State Government is providing around 570 essential drugs free of cost through its Niramaya scheme at all medical colleges, district, sub-divisional, community and primary health centres. Free diagnostic services under the scheme Nidan have also been rolled out to the level of the Community Health Centres.
The Chief Secretary suggested the Central Cabinet Secretary that the financial provisions for household electricity connections under the Soubhagya Yojana be raised from present level of Rs 4,500 to Rs 20,000 to meet all requirements including service connections, wiring, additional poles, etc. Padhi said the State Government would bear 40% of this enhanced cost on a Centre-State sharing basis.
The first phase of the GSA was implemented in Odisha in eight districts from April to May, 2018. Cabinet Secretary Sinha said the performance of Odisha in the first phase was excellent. The GSA-Special Intervention would be implemented from June 1 to August 15, 2018.