Uttarakhand: The Chief Secretary reviewed the remaining 36 departments with regard to capital expenditure, centrally aided, externally aided projects, NABARD as well as KPI and KOI

Chief Secretary Anand Bardhan reviewed the remaining 36 departments in the secretariat on Friday in relation to capital expenditure, centrally aided, externally aided projects, NABARD as well as KPI and KOI. The Chief Secretary had reviewed 12 departments the previous day.

The Chief Secretary has directed all departments to prepare a workplan to spend 50 percent of the capital budget by September and make it available for planning. He also directed all departments to compulsorily make all proposals available by August 15. He said that continuous monitoring should be done to achieve the targets on time, for this fortnightly and weekly review should be done by the concerned Secretary and Heads of Departments.

The Chief Secretary talked about preparing a mechanism for checking the quality of drinking water and displaying it for the general public. He said that the quality of water should be displayed near each distribution tank on a weekly basis. He said that in terms of drinking water quality in the state, work has to be done in the direction of Zero RO (Zero Reverse Osmosis). He has also directed the irrigation department to expedite the Song Dam project. He also directed the department to prepare a fund management plan. He said that the irrigation department should include the increase in irrigation area and water body recharge, increase in groundwater from check dams in its ‘Key Outcome Indicator’.

The Chief Secretary has directed the Forest Department to revise the survival norms in the next 15 days. He also talked about developing a model fencing site for bio fencing. He said that the ‘Key Outcome Indicator’ should include how much percentage of increase in the number of tourists from the Eco Park. Similarly, a separate KOI should be determined for mountaineering and trekking. He has also directed the Forest Department to focus on raising new sources of revenue from forest produce.

During the review of the Transport Department, the Chief Secretary directed to increase ANPR cameras and start SPV soon. He said that the Transport Department needs to increase the billing and collection capacity of challans generated through ANPR cameras.

Principal Secretary R. Meenakshi Sundaram, Special Chief Secretary Amit Sinha, Secretary Shailesh Bagauli, Nitesh Kumar Jha, Secretary Kurve, Dilip Jawalkar, Dr. V. Shanmugam, Dr. Ranjit Kumar Sinha, Additional Secretary Himanshu Khurana, Manmohan Mainali and other senior officers were present on this occasion.