The State Government has invited attention of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog in making its growth trajectory better and help to improve upon the indices. Some of important areas outlined in the meeting of Niti Aayog officials with the top brass in the State Government included education and health.
Holding the meeting with member of the apex plan making body of the country Vijay Kumar Saraswat and his team, Chief Minister Raghubar Das referred to sluggish pace and unfocused development agenda so far for the State lagging behind.
“Development of Jharkhand in the last 70 years has been neglected. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Bajpayee had laid its foundation for the sake of speedy growth but due to political instability Jharkhand could not progress in the last 14 years. We still need assistance from the Center to improve on important indicators like education, health etc,” said the CM on Friday.
He also used the occasion to highlight the ground work done by the Government and reiterated ambitious goals set for complete electrification and achieving ODF tag by 2018.
“Jharkhand has been ranked among the top on several counts. We are doing our best to bring marginalised sections into the mainstream. It is heartening to see that the Niti Aayog is observing difficulties and priorities of the State from itself unlike before when policies were made and imposed while sitting in Delhi,” said Das and counted on ‘ease of doing business’ feet, steps taken for women empowerment and policy frameworks in place for almost all important sectors.
VK Saraswat while lauding the measures taken by the State in the field of development termed Jharkhand among the top runners. “Jharkhand needs to be congratulated for being among the immerging faces. It is recording 8.6 per cent growth which is much higher that its previous performances. It has taken confident strides in every sector and successful completion of ‘Momentum Jharkhand’ with good growth rate can be seen under a dynamic leadership,” said the noted scientist.
He also called on the State to take part in exchange of knowledge resource at national level and outlined areas such as education, health, skill development, sanitation etc where wider perspective can bring the Center and State together. “Niti Aayog is willing to assist Jharkhand with all possible means and would work as a team with the State,” said he.
On the occasion Additional Chief Secretary Amit Khare presented a progress report of the State and said that during the last two financial years budget expenditure had been as high as 94.44
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CM seeks Niti Aayog help to improve on growth indicators
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per cent and 97.36 per cent. “The State is among the league of the States those are developing fast. Financial status of the State is robust and we have our own development council committed to development,” said Khare.
Also present in the meeting were Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma, Secretaries of all the departments and a team of senior officials of the Niti Aayog.