
BHUBANESWAR: The state government on Tuesday directed all department secretaries and senior officials to visit a district every two months and spend a night at the sub-divisional level to closely monitor the implementation of various schemes and programmes in those areas.
In a letter to all department secretaries and senior officials, Development Commissioner Anu Garg said the officials should randomly select the areas of visit within the district including inaccessible and tribal-dominated regions.
“The officers should visit at least one gram panchayat and assess the saturation in the coverage of various development and government welfare programmes for basic facilities,” she stated.
The secretaries were further directed to have at least one meal a day on a payment basis in either an SC/ST hostel, mid-day meal in school, Aahar Kendra or orphanage to check the quality of food and the ambience.
“Officers are also expected to interact with the members of public from different walks of life, patients in CHCs or PHCs, beneficiaries in Anganwadi centres, and tribal girls in schools and hostels,” Garg said.
This apart, they were also asked to review the utilisation of funds under DMF and OMBADC and visit the projects taken up with these funds in eight major DMF districts like Angul, Jajpur, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar, Koraput, Mayurbhanj, Rayagada and Sundargarh.
The development commissioner asked secretaries assigned districts in which 29 aspirational blocks fall, to review the implementation of various development and welfare programmes at the block offices.
They should hold a review meeting at the district headquarters and share the findings of the visit with collectors and other officials, besides submitting a report in this connection to the chief secretary. The government has allotted districts to 30 additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries, secretaries and additional secretaries in this regard and has asked them to plan the first visit by March-end.