STATE TIMES NEWS
SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta on Friday released the 3rd edition of District Good Governance Index (DGGI 3.0) here along with performance of Districts in achieving a set of 385 Deliverables given to them during 22-23.
At the outset, the Chief Secretary praised the whole team of Planning Development & Monitoring Department headed by Administrative Secretary, Raghav Langar for carrying out this massive exercise and compiling rankings right from Panchayats up to District level.
CS for making all villages ODF+ by June end
SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta on Friday emphasised upon the concerned to intensify their efforts to declare all the habitations of J&K as (Open Defecation Free) ODF+ within this month only. He observed that the requisite funds demanded has already been put at disposal of the department so there should be no delay in meeting the deadline.
Dr Mehta made these remarks while speaking in a meeting to review the performance of this Swachhta Mission here in the UT.
The meeting was attended by the Commissioner Secretary, RDD; Director, Rural Sanitation besides other concerned officers of the Department. Jammu based officers participated in the meeting through video conferencing. Dr Mehta enquired from the officers about the status of door to door collection of waste in each village of the UT. He impressed upon the officers to make sure that the legacy waste is also lifted from the villages and dumped at the sites identified for this purpose in each panchayat.
He also maintained that the segregation of waste should be done in each panchayat as per the requirements so that the disposal of the same becomes smooth. He told them to sensitize the people about the cleanliness of their surroundings and also penalize those found littering around undesirably at the peril of the environment.
The Chief Secretary maintained that there is no substitute to cleanliness and all have to be serious about it. He observed that the job is for everybody to perform beginning from the self to his/her surroundings. He made out that the task of cleanliness of our villages is not a difficult task to accomplish if we all do our bit.
He acknowledged that much headway has been made in making our villages cleaner than earlier. He simultaneously remarked that since the performance on ground has been encouraging the bar of expectations has also raised high. He complimented the Department for its achievements in making our villages clean and asked them not to lessen their efforts till the last of our villages is declared clean and hygienic in every respect.
He took appraisal from the officers about the status of construction of segregation sheds, provision of Composite/Soak pits, drainage facilities, and disposal of waste in the villages. He also enquired from them about the implementation of Plastic Waste Management plans for he remarked that such a waste creates unhygienic conditions mostly in our surroundings.
The Commissioner Secretary, RDD told the meeting that out of 7163 villages 6384 villages have achieved the ODF+ status in the UT of J&K with a coverage of 87% villageshere. She stressed on making every village a model category village in coming months for the same is within target after the given infrastructure is created in each Panchayat.
On the occasion the Director, Rural Sanitation gave a presentation on the current status of all the initiatives taken under Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen in the UT. He said that the door-to-door collection of waste is going on in every village. He further revealed that Solid Waste Management (SWM) plan has been formulated for every Panchayat besides bye-laws for advisory committees enforcement and monitoring purposes.
The meeting was informed that the agency for collection of Solid Waste has been identified in all the districts with an allied financial model for its sustainability. District Sanitation Committees have been constituted also. It was further given out that the legacy waste of more than 80000 kgs has been lifted by the department so far. It was further revealed that some 5 lakh souls had been contacted during Swachhta Karwan which traversed almost through 1000 villages of the UT.
Moreover the meeting was apprised that in order to ensure proper sanitation, thousands of community composit pits, segregation sheds, more than 50000 Soak pits/Leach pits, drainage facilities, Grey Water Management (GWM) systems have been created in villages in addition to creation of individual household assets for SWM and GWM under the Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen throughout the length and breadth of J&K.
Dr Mehta called this exercise path breaking for adopting an evidence based planning tool enabling targeted interventions. He said that it would assist the administration in evolving a more focused approach towards each sector. He observed that these rankings have helped pinpoint the lacunae in each area of development thereby making the impact of interventions measurable which would lead to better outcomes.
The Chief Secretary termed it a tool towards ensuring good governance in the UT. He urged all the Deputy Commissioners to thoroughly go through these rankings and formulate plans accordingly to fill the developmental voids pointed out in this ranking system.
The DGGI parameters to measure the performances of Districts consists of 58 indicators under 10 sectors. These includes Agriculture & Allied sector having 11 indicators, Commerce & Industry (5), Human Resource Development (9), Public Health Sectors (9), Public Infrastructure & Utilities (6), Social Welfare & Development (6), Financial Inclusion (3), Legal & Public Safety (4), Environment (2), Citizen-Centric Governance (3).
This year the table is topped by Jammu District with an overall score of 6.3771 out of 10 followed by Samba at 2nd place with a score of 6.1799, Srinagar (6.0045) at 3rd, Rajouri (5.8696) at 4th, Bandipora (5.7651) at 5th, Anantnag (5.7110) at 6th, Budgam (5.4924) 7th, Pulwama (5.2814) 8th, Doda (5.2622) 9th, Ganderbal (5.2588) 10th, Baramulla (5.0285) 11th followed by Shopian (4.9446), Udhampur (4.9332), Kupwara (4.8881), Kathua (4.8179), Kishtwar (4.7800), Kulgam (4.6391), Ramban (4.6354), Poonch (4.4623), and Reasi (4.4608) at the bottom among the 20 Districts of J&K.
Similarly it gives insights about previous rankings and scores earned by each District during DGGI 2.0 as well. Anantnag District has made a quantum leap increasing its rank from previous 17th to 6th this year while as Kulgam has slipped 11 spots to reach 17th this year, Shopian has lost 8 spots to manage 12th rank this year from 4th last time. Pulwama which was at first rank previously has attained 8th rank this time. Rajouri and Bandipora are the other Districts that have done better by increasing their ranks this year from 10th to 4th and 13th to 5th respectively.
The data also shows sector wise performance of each district ranking them on each parameter belonging to a specific sector. Among different sectors Pulwama has made it to top in Agriculture and Financial Inclusion sectors, Srinagar in Industries & Allied sector, Samba in Human Resource Development and Social Welfare sectors, Rajouri in Public Health and Citizen-Centric Governance sectors, Jammu in Public Infrastructure & Utilities, Anantnag in Judiciary & Public Safety and Bandipora had ranked first in safeguarding the Environment.
These rankings were released by the Chief Secretary in presence of all the Administrative Secretaries, District Development Commissioners, HoDs of Planning, Finance and other concerned departments.
Pertinent to mention here that J&K was the first to successfully set up this governance model here two years back and is now being considered for replication by other States/UTs in the country.