Our Correspondent
Kohima | October 22
To review the various schemes being implemented under the Department of Rural Development, a meeting was held on October 21 at RD Conference Hall with Project Directors of all the districts and NSRLM officers.
The day-long meeting discussed agendas and status relating to several projects such as SAGY, PMAY (G), Grant-in-Aid, MGNREGA, NSRLM, maintenance of MGNRGA Special Project, DRDA administration and labour budgeting. Addressing the meeting, secretary RD, Kelei Zeliang called upon the department to cooperate with the MPs and DC with regard to ongoing projects under SAGY so as to complete pending works. He also reminded that RD is just the nodal department of SAGY and like any other line departments. He said that the department will try its level best to cooperate and do what needs to be done.
Lamenting on the casual attitude of the BDOs in carrying out their duties, he also instructed the PDs to direct their respective BDOs to be in station and visit villages and inspect schemes being implemented. On the issue of CGI sheet distribution, he urged them to check whether the quantity distributed to the blocks and villages have been received. “Distribution of CGI sheets should be public transfer so that the beneficiaries also know how many bundles are being distributed,” he said while adding that if 10 units are given, 10 houses should come up.
Stating that the State is doing very well on cardamom plantation, Zeliang also urged them to take up cardamom plantation on large scale for higher altitude districts and also said that palm oil plantation will be taken up as a major crop for low altitude areas in the next year.
Director, RD, Metsubo Jamir also mentioned that MGNREGAs contribution towards SAGY will be only in the form of material components and that it will be not more than 25%.
To create awareness and to generate transparency, Jamir also felt that the project Directors should take the initiative to conduct district and block level VDB meetings at regular intervals. Regarding Job Card verification, Geo Tagging and aadhar seeding etc, he said it is mandatory to call all the VDBs and inform them before proceeding with the exercise.
In an effort to streamline the State Rural Livelihood Mission, Additional Secretary, RD and Mission Director, NSRLM, Athel O. Lotha said accountability will now be vested towards the PDs and requested all the PDs and BDOs to keep the NRLM staffs under their control so that everything is streamlined and clarity, communication and coordination will be there. She hoped that this will have a positive impact and the mission will run smoothly.
Some systems have to be put in place to make the mission successful, she said, while also expressing the need to create an information system so that all directives from the ministry are let known to the PDs and BDOs as well. Stating that the State Rural Livelihood Mission being a Mission Mode program requiring urgent interventions and time bound implementation, she also directed all DMMUs and BMMUs to open an email account to facilitate better communication between SMMU and its respective units particularly through scanned email copies where urgent matters can be followed up before the original copies is received.
Joint Director, K. Neibou Sekhose also reminded the districts and blocks to submit at the earliest the reports on NLM visit, Panchayat Day celebration, Disha, Best 3 VDBs, video clips for MGNREGA Special Project and job card verification report.
The Project Directors were further instructed to organize district level VDB conference by the 2nd week of November.
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