Chief Secretary reviews development scenario in Poonch

Asks district administration to increase public outreach programs, expedite ongoing projects

Poonch, November 25: To take stock of overall development scenario and implementation of various ongoing developmental projects and schemes, and to remove bottlenecks in completion of held up projects in the district, Chief Secretary of J&K state B.B. Vyas along with commissioner secretary health & medical education Dr. Pawan Kotwal, commissioner secretary R&B Sanjeev Verma and secretary to school education Farooq Shah today chaired a high level meeting of district and sectoral officers at Dak Bungalow Poonch.

The meeting was attended by District Development Commissioner Tariq Ahmad Zargar, ADDC Abdul Hamid, ADC Basharat Hussain, ASP Anwar-ul-Haq, Superintending Engineers, and Executive Engineers from PHE, PDD, R&B, I&FC and officers from various departments.

At the very outset, DDC apprised the Chief Secretary through power point presentation about the physical &financial status of ongoing development works and flag-ship programs taken up by various executing agencies & departments in this border district.

DDC also apprised the Chief Secretary about the works being executed by department of health, education, R&B, PHE, I & FC & FCS&CA. While reviewing sector wise performance, chief secretary asked the officers for increase in the spending rate of state share by booking the expenditure in appropriate time so that valuable money should not go waste.

While apprising the chief secretary, DDC brought several core issues in to the notice of CS including shortage of equipments and doctors specially radiologist in district hospital and requested for similar infrastructure in SDHs &, PHCs in the district.

Speaking on the occasion, commissioner secretary health & medical education, Dr Pawan Kotwal informed the meeting that government is on job to fill up the vacancies of doctors & very soon the vacant seats of doctors in this border district and far-off regions will be filled which is often prone to cross border shelling .While reviewing the progress of newly created infrastructure under health sector and stock of medicines in the district, Mr. Pawan Kotwal directed the CMO Poonch to immediately taken over the newly buildings created under NRHM and in this regard submit a detailed requirements of medical equipments and furniture so that public utilities created are dedicated to people earlier.

During the meeting DDC also raised others important issues of development which are bone of contention since flash flood of 2014 are restoration of 132 KV line which is being taken up by PGSIL company The chief secretary took detailed feedback from the concerned regarding realignment of transmission lines, land issues and tendering process and talked telephonically to MD of PGSIL ltd in this regard.

The meeting held a threadbare discussion on the issues hindering the pace of development projects including land acquisition, land compensation and forest clearance & directed the concerned officers to remove bottlenecks by taking appropriate action in week time and asked them that he will review the progress in this connection shortly.

Chief Secretary urged upon the officers to gear up the pace of ongoing works and projects and directed the concerned to personally monitor the progress of ongoing developmental works on regular basis to ensure completion of these projects within the fixed timelines so the people will take benefits from these projects.

Reiterating the importance of public outreach programs, the chief secretary appreciated the efforts of DDC Poonch for redressing grievances of the people at their door steps . It is pertinent to mention here that DDC Poonch from the last several months has been travelling to the rural pockets and in this connection more than 20 public grievances redressal camps under his supervision &personal presence and also hundreds of camps under PSGA were conducted so for in which more than 9000 different types of certificates were issued besides special have been organized in far-off pockets for attesting mutations.

Later, Chief Secretary visited at the sites of various ongoing projects for taking first hand appraisal of ground realities and to know the feasibility so that project may completed earlier. The projects where CS paid visits were Min secretariat building Poonch, indoor sports stadium Poonch, which are awaiting completion due to lack of funds besides he visited at Anganwadi ICDS center at Mohalla Purani Poonch. He directed the executing agencies to complete these projects on priority basis before March- 2018.

The chief secretary also paid visit at administrative block of DC office Poonch where he interacted with people/ applicants & government functionaries to know the functioning of Head offices. He also took functioning of biometric attendance & ADHAR there & directed DC to ensure punctuality and accountability of the employees in various government offices for better public delivery, grievance redressal mechanisms through effective implementation of RTI and

PSGA, and called for empathetic & sympathetic attitude while dealing to the people.