BHUBANESWAR: Activating local governments and members of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) is key to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs), opined experts here on Friday. “PRI members should be involved and an integral approach adopted to achieve the SDGs,” said additional secretary of Panchayati Raj Ministry Chandrasekhar Kumar during a panel discussion on ‘Localising SDGs: Activating the Local Self-Governments, Panchayat Bodies’ on the 40th Foundation Day of Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD).
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik through his video message lauded the efforts of CYSD for catalysing the development process in rural and tribal pockets. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Research and Training Institute director AB Ota said the mandate of decentralisation of SDGs calls for priority attention towards tribal regions. CYSD co-founder Jagadananda said the State government, civil societies, corporate and business houses and other stakeholders should work for localising SDGs to fast track Odisha’s SDG 2030 agenda.
He pointed out that though Odisha’s performance in achieving the SDGs has increased by 10 points in 2020, it still remains among bottom five states. Emphasising on the need for involving local self governments in understanding SDGs, director general of Indian Institute of Public Administration SN Tripathy said with a new set of urban and rural local bodies, Odisha has immense potential to carry out the planning and implementation at grassroots level.