Uttarakhand: Chief Secretary reviewed capital expenditure, centrally aided, externally aided projects, NABARD as well as KPI and KOI

Chief Secretary Anand Bardhan reviewed capital expenditure, centrally aided, externally aided projects, NABARD as well as KPI and KOI at the Secretariat on Thursday. The Chief Secretary has directed the officials to expedite capital expenditure. 12 departments were included during the meeting today. During this, it was told that a total provision of ₹ 14763 crore has been made in capital expenditure. Out of which ₹ 2215 crore (15 percent) has been released and out of which ₹ 1049 crore (7.11 percent) has been spent.

The Chief Secretary directed that 50 percent of the capital budget should be spent by September. He has directed the departments to send all the proposals by August 15. He said that continuous monitoring should be done to achieve the targets on time, for this fortnightly meetings should be held by the concerned Secretary and Heads of Departments.

The Chief Secretary said that under capital expenditure, the Chief Minister’s announcements should be taken on priority. He also directed the departments to focus on KPI (Key Performance Indicator) and KOI (Key Outcome Indicator). He said that along with capital expenditure, special attention needs to be paid to the outcome. Explaining the outcome, he said that how much percent foreign tourists have increased due to the expenditure made by the Tourism Department, or how much percent has the average stay of all types of tourists increased. He has instructed the Horticulture Department to increase its capacity. He talked about focusing on increasing cold chain and off-season production. He instructed that the polyhouse project should be expedited. Value added and food processing projects should be given priority.

The Chief Secretary has instructed to prepare guidelines for bio fencing and chain link fencing in the Agriculture Department soon. He also instructed to open a separate head for this. He said that a provision of Rs 200 crore should be made in this head. A provision for this should also be made in the supplementary budget in this financial year. He directed to give priority to the proposals of bio fencing and chain link fencing through the selection committee. He said that priority should be given to such places where maximum damage is being caused to agricultural crops along with human-wildlife conflict.

The Chief Secretary has directed the Dairy Development Department to increase the dairy products of the region. He also directed the Sugarcane Development to visit the sugar mills and complete the repair and maintenance work of the machines soon and start production in the sugar mills on time.

On this occasion, Principal Secretary R.K. Sudhanshu, Secretary Mrs. Radhika Jha, Dilip Jawalkar, Dr. B.V.R.C Purushottam, V. Shanmugam, Dhiraj Garbyal and Sridhar Babu Addanki, Additional Secretary Himanshu Khurana, Manmohan Mainali and other senior officers were present.