Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta, today urged the region’s planning monitoring and development department (PMDP) to strengthen its capabilities in areas such as plan assessment, gap analysis and critical outcome reviews to improve implementation of all developmental schemes.
Maintaining that J&K’s developmental story is still work in progress, Dr Mehta underscored the pivotal role of the department. He said: “The planning department is essentially the eyes and ears of the government and if it is amiss in its duties, it will have impact on the growth story of J&K.”
The chief secretary made these remarks in a review meeting, which was attended by the Secretary (Planning) and other senior officers.
Secretary (Planning) Sushma Chauhan earlier informed that under the PMDP, 25 projects have been completed and another four projects will be completed by the end of the ongoing fiscal year.
She further said that the union territory indicator framework on SDGs has been finalised with NITI Aayog, covering 206 indicators and 81 targets. These 206 indicators include 23 UT specific indicators, she added.
She said that the districts indicator framework, covering 15 goals, 62 targets and 166 indicators has also been finalised and all districts have been asked to prepare district SDG progress reports annually.
It was further informed that J&K has shown improvement on 11 goals and has moved from being a performer to frontrunner in SDG index.
There has been considerable progress under e-samiksha, as out of 360 issues to be addressed; only 28 remain to be resolved, she added.
Sushma informed that the plan under BADP for the year 2022-23 for Rs.228 crore has been uploaded on the MHA portal.
She further added that savings accruing in the ongoing plan shall be aggregated with the next year’s plan and a consolidated plan shall be immediately submitted to MHA.
Dr Mehta asked the department to assess all ongoing developmental projects/schemes in the UT, independent of the departments, and identify gaps for correction.
He said J&K has a lot of distance to cover in meeting sustainable development goals and asked the planning department to coordinate with the line departments in measuring the performance under various indicators on a regular basis.
“The regular monitoring of various developmental schemes in districts/UT level will speed up the implementation of the schemes and help improve expenditure outcome/efficiencies,” he said.
Dr Mehta asked the department to do a sample survey of the assets built on the ground out of CSS funds to see if the quality parameters/intended service level objectives have been met.
He said the achievement of SDGs remains the top priority and asked the department to take measures in collaboration with the line departments to prepare an actionable time bound framework for improving on SDG index.