The Odisha Government has initiated a process for setting up of a dedicated Project Management Unit (PMU) for achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) 2030 in a time bound manner.
The Planning and Convergence Department, under the guidance ofDevelopment Commissioner Pradeep Jena, has prepared a detailed roadmap to achieve the indicators mentioned under the SDGs.
According to sources, the department has floated a tender inviting anexpert agency to set up the PMU at its office for proper planning,monitoring and coordination of the work plan for achievement of SDGs.
The PMU will comprise a multi-disciplinary project team of 10 teammembers led by a leader, who will be a master degree from a top 10NIRF or international ranked institution along with post-educationexperience.The PMU will have experts from the field of environment, social andeconomic along with three consultants and three data analysts, thesources said.
All the 10 team members of the PMU will be deployed on full-time basisfor a period of three years at the Planning and ConvergenceDepartment.
The team will optimally utilise various databases on the developmentand socio -economic indicators at State and district level maintainedby various agencies for strategic planning. The entire team willprepare required periodic analytical reports on SDG goals at the Stateand district levels, they said.
Odisha’s performance in achieving the sustainable development goalshas increased by 10 score points in the year 2020. The State’s SDGperformance score increased to 61 in the year 2020 from 51 in 2019.
However, the score is not up to the mark in many goals fixed by theNiti Aayog. The overall rank of Odisha has fallen a few notches downto 19th rank in 2020 from 15th slot the previous year.
Though its composite score has improved from 58 to 61, putting itamong the performers bracket, it remains among bottom five Statesalong with Nagaland and Chhattisgarh. In the population below thepoverty line, households covered by health insurance and constructionof pucca houses, the State has shown no improvement. Similarly,employment provided against demand under MGNREGA has seen a marginal drop.
The SDG India Index-which has been developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), United Nations in India, and Global Green Growth Institute, tracks progress of all States and UTs on 100 indicators drawn from the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation’s National Indicator Framework (NIF).