Jugal Means Business Bhubaneswar : 3/July/2013 For the first time the senior mandarins found out that their top boss means business. All Secretaries Meet, which met here today witnessed a much prepared Chief Secretary Jugal Kishore Mohapatra charting out his plans to scale Odisha into a much faster growth lane. Principal Secretaries and Secretaries had a freewheel meeting , where they opened their heart. And Chief Secretary listened to them and advised to continue their good work. “In recent years, Odisha has achieved economic growth ranging from 8 to 9 percent. The economy of the State has the potential for growth of up to 10 per cent in the coming years”, said Chief Secretary Mr.Mohapatra. Chairing a meeting of all Secretaries and Special Secretaries today in the State Secretariat, Mr.Mohapatra exhibited his trust in the strength of economy of the State. Discussions held in the meeting revealed that for a small sized economy like Odisha, it is not phenomenal to achieve economic growth rate of 8 to 9 per cent. It still has the potential for higher rate of growth up to 10 per cent. However, despite pervasive impact of global recession and declining trend of national economic growth rate, the newly appointed Chief Secretary’s estimation of the economy of the State appears outlandish. “Even at present, the State has the fiscal ability to enhance investment in public infrastructure by up to 5 per cent,” he further added. Mr.Mohapatra emphasised on creation and appropriate management of infrastructure and for enhancing Government investment in infrastructure development, he asked all secretaries to evolve a robust mechanism for creation and maintenance of infrastructure facilities. Outlining the focus areas for prioritisation by concerned departments, the new Chief Secretary urged the Secretaries and Special Secretaries to optimise team efforts in implementation of projects and overcome the constraints in the process. The focus areas identified by Mr.Mohapatra include creative solution for augmenting service delivery at grass root level, recruitment of personnel in key posts at field positions, stepping up public investment in infrastructure, qualitative improvement in higher education, distributional reforms and qualitative management in Power Sector, strengthening of Public Health system, promotion of agri business, mainstreaming of tribal and social vulnerable groups, land acquisition for developmental projects, expeditious disposal of rehabilitation issues, regulatory clearances for different projects, raw material linkage for stained projects, etc. The Chief Secretary also highlighted medium infrastructural priority areas, which include State Highways development projects covering double lining of 2000 km of State Highways, creation of irrigation facilities for six lakh hectares, completion of 600 rural bridges, completion of 15,000 km of PMGSY roads, establishment of two super critical power projects, installation of 520 power stations with 33/11 KV capacity, facilitation of National Highway projects, creation of at least two ports, expediting Railways projects like Anugul- Sukinda, Hadidaspur- Paradip and Khurda- Bolangir rail lines. Besides, Mr.Mohapatra asked the Parliamentary Affairs Department to upload Cabinet decisions on Government website and advised Secretaries to implement all decisions. “Team efforts should be optimised and service delivery ensured at grass roots level”, he advised. Besides, he asked all Secretaries to draw a list of at least 3-5 priority areas, which they can boost in their respective departments. The new Development Commissioner, Injeti Srinivas, informed that a project monitoring system has been initiated in Planning & Coordination Department for tracking and monitoring various projects. The new Additional Chief Secretary Finance Department, UN Behera asked all Secretaries to submit their proposals for the 14th Finance Commission Report within 15 days.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 11:55:25 +0000
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