With Jugal Kishore Mohapatra, the Development Commissioner (DC), visiting districts extensively, the message is now loud and clear.
Mohapatra, who is all set to take over as the new Chief Secretary on July 1, wants to give a message that the senior officers will have to visit districts and reach the people during his tenure. Videoconferencing may be a passé as Mohapatra prefers visits to villages and talking to the people to sort out their problems. Now, many senior Secretaries instead of visiting districts are resorting to videoconferencing, which forces the Collectors to remain in office.
This trend is harming the district administrations as the Babus at the field level are getting less public touch, though the State Government’s policy aims at taking the administration to the doorsteps of people, said a senior officer accompanying Mohapatra. For the first time, people of Bonai sub-division in Sundargarh district found a train of officers headed by Mohapatra landing in the area, which was earlier never visited by any senior officers.
Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC) Northern Division G Srinivas accompanied Mohapatra, who visited the avenue plantation from Kantajodi to Badgogua undertaken under the MGNREGS. District Collector Roopa Roshan Sahoo was all along present during the tour of the district.
Mohapatra also visited the Rukura Irrigation Project on the Brahmani basin in Bonai sub-division, which was given administrative approval way back in 2008 at a cost of Rs 155 crore. The tardy progress reportedly irked the top administrator as the project on completion would provide irrigation to an area of 5,463 hectares of land in Kharif season and 2,185 hectares during Rabi in 74 villages of Bonai and Gurundia blocks.
Tribal people requested Mohapatra to provide dug-wells and, accordingly, he advised the officers to set up such facilities. Serious shortage of officers in was a cause of worry for the DC as the District Headquarters Hospital is facing a tough time in the absence of specialists and the retired doctors are getting very low remuneration after availing pension.
Therefore, the retired specialists are not willing to work in post-retirement assignments. It was decided to take up the matter at the Government level for recommending minimum consolidated pay for these doctors to help tide over the shortage of specialists. While reviewing the anti-malaria programme, the DC wanted the API (Annual Parasite Index) to be reduced in the tribal blocks. He said Sundargarh should emulate Keonjhar district in this regard. He wanted distribution of llIN (bed nets) among the tribal population and ensure its use to eradicate malaria.
In the ICDS, he noted that the AWCs need to be provided permanent buildings. There are 3,706 sanctioned AWCs, but only 1,761 have Government buildings. He wanted the toilet facilities in the AWCs to be utilised with proper training and motivation. It was pointed out by the district-level officers that for smooth functioning of the feeding programme an upward revision of rates is essential. The DC agreed to this.
Mohapatra wanted road connectivity to be provided to all the habitats having population of 500 and also to have a plan in place for connecting 250-population habitations.