The State-level High Powered Steering Committee (SHSPC) on Thursday approved the Detail Project Reports (DPR) of 34 projects worth around Rs538 crore for nine towns under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme.
Chief Secretary AP Padhi, who chaired the SHSPC meeting, directed the department to expedite the implementation and commission those within the scheduled time.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary G Mathivathnan outlined the need and expected outcomes of the projects in the meeting and Additional Secretary Prem Kumar Jha presented the technical and financial details with timelines for implementation.
With these new projects, the total number of projects for AMRUT towns reached 148 with total estimated cost of around Rs1,100 crore. Around 97.5 per cent of this sanctioned value has been devoted towards improvement of water supply and sewerage infrastructure and 2.5 per cent have been devoted towards development of parks and other civic services.
Chief Secretary Padhi further directed the department to drop the non-starter projects approved earlier and substitute them with new ones in interest of the civic services in the towns. The department was asked to focus on water supply and sewerage projects.
He emphasized that no area of the AMRUT towns be left uncovered with water supply by end of the project period. It may be pertinent here to mention that the AMRUT scheme has been started in Odisha from 2015-16 with a target to complete the projects by 2019-20.
Discussions in the meeting revealed that Odisha has been a leading State at national level in implementation of the service delivery and implementation reforms at UlB level. During the year 2016-17, the State has implemented around 12 major reforms, including adoption of energy efficiency mechanism, waste water recycling and fecal sludge management, e-governance, development of children’s park, adoption of model building by-laws, implementation of State Finance Commission recommendations and credit rating of the UlBs.
Internal assessment of the progress in reform implementation shows that the State has already achieved around 98 per cent in this direction. Secretary Mathivathnan mentioned that last year Odisha was ranked in 3rd position at the national level in reform implementation and was awarded with Rs10.52 crore as incentive grant. This year the State expects to be ranked among top performing States.