STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: The Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on Thursday passed Demands for Grants amounting to Rs 1,652.78 crore for six key departments.
The grants were approved for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Youth Services and Sports, Transport, Information Technology, Science and Technology, and ARI & Training departments.
Winding up the discussion on grants of his department, Minister Satish Sharma said constructive criticism and dialogue were essential to improve governance and service delivery.
Of the total approved grants, Rs 74 crore was sanctioned for Information Technology, Rs 543 crore for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, and Rs 37 crore for ARI & Training.
Funds upwards of Rs 126 crore, Rs 680 crore, and Rs 189 crore were sanctioned for Transport, Youth Services and Sports, and Science and Technology departments.
Sharma said the ARI & Training Department was driving a “whole-of-government” approach through digital initiatives, including a single-window online portal for recruitment rules and an online NDC system, significantly reducing paperwork and processing time.
On food security, the minister said J-K had emerged as a national leader in reforming the public distribution system by fully adopting the SMART PDS framework.
He informed the House that 16.4 lakh households comprising 67.39 lakh members were covered under the NFSA and continue to receive free foodgrains under PMGKAY.
Sharma said the Union Territory had achieved 100 per cent automation of fair price shops, benefiting over 1.02 crore of its residents, and was moving towards advanced biometric-enabled PoS machines, which would make J-K the first UT to transition to the L1 level under smart PDS.
He also announced plans to introduce pulses, edible oil and millets through fair price shops and to establish a State Food Commission for effective NFSA implementation.
On digital governance, the minister said the IT Department was strengthening infrastructure and service delivery through expanded online services, establishment of IT parks in Jammu and Srinagar, augmentation of the State Data Centre and adoption of a hybrid cloud model.
Integration of BHASHINI to enable multilingual access to government platforms was also underway, he added.
Sharma said the government was moving towards faceless and paperless services, doorstep delivery of driving licences, electronic vehicle fitness testing and implementation of a vehicle scrapping policy.
He said 200 new buses would be added to the fleet and green mobility initiatives would be scaled up while safeguarding the livelihoods of local transporters.
The minister said over 7,500 government buildings had been solarised, small hydropower projects were being expanded and major science infrastructure projects, including regional science centres and biotechnology parks, were nearing completion.