The day Chief Minister Hemant Soren took oath of office, he announced that a 100-day work plan would be devised for each department and its progress would be reviewed periodically. October 20 marks 100 days of the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition Government in Jharkhand when the CM would be reviewing progress on the said work plan of departments. A number of such plans, though have not even been initiated, leaders of both JMM and Congress are not shying away from calling the period technically too little for the actual work to be visible on ground.
The Government had announced to have a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) on July 29 with about 122 point agenda, which included thrust areas like health, education, water resources, construction of roads etc. The government had also fixed priorities for 13 departments. lot of announcements were made in the past three months but there seem to be not enough progress on many fronts, according to sources.
The 100-day agenda included establishment of medical colleges at the divisional level, setting up of super speciality hospitals on PPP mode, establishment of medical training institutes etc. in the health sector. For the education department works like setting up of toilets for girls in each government school, arrangement of Mid Day Meals at Madarsas, recruitment of female teachers were assigned.
For strengthening of rural infrastructure work of construction of wells and ponds in small hamlets and ponds was instructed and expenses under tribal sub plan were ordered to be strictly done.
The Government had also planned to train States' Special Task Force (STF) on the model of Andhra Pradesh. This plan has begun with 40 members of state STF coming back after being trained by the Greyhounds in Andhra Pradesh. Ranchi capital city project was also instructed to get expedited apart from development of Dhanbad, Bokaro, and Jamshedpur and Ranchi cities under JNNURM schemes. Work on this scheme is going at a snail's pace as the urban civic bodies are yet to execute the plans with proper momentum.
The agenda also included distribution of Ration Cards within three months and inclusion of eligible families under BPl category. Formation of a committee to decide on domicile policy of the State, empowering the State lokayukta and establishment of special courts for corruption related issues was some important points of the agenda.
Although top officials of various departments were busy submitting their departments' progress reports on Saturday, few departments were lagging behind. Till the time of filing of this report 20 departments had submitted their reports that will be reviewed by the CM on Sunday, said sources.
Interestingly, neither the JMM nor the Congress was ready to accept that the government would complete 100 days on October 20 as they feel that the government was formed when the final round of Cabinet expansion took place onAugust 24 in which three Ministers' of Congress quota took oath of office and secrecy.
"We do not accept it's hundred days. The government came into action when the full cabinet took shape. There is too little time to gauge the potentials of the government. However, we may issue a statement tomorrow in this regard," said JMM Spokesperson Vinod Pandey.
Congress leader Rajendra Prasad Singh, presently in charge of Finance, Health, Energy and a couple of other Ministries said, "Technically it may be 100 days but days should be counted since August 24 when the cabinet became full. If CM had made some announcements he would better answer the queries." It was too early to assess the work progress, he affirmed.