Srinagar: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta Monday remarked that the basic amenities in border areas should be as good as those found in other villages. He maintained that these areas have greater priority as the people there constitute the first line of defense for the nation.
Dr Mehta was speaking in a meeting called to review the implementation of ‘Samridh Seema Yojana’ (SSY) launched by UT government under Capex Budget 2022-23 with its focus on filling the infrastructural gaps in border areas of the UT.
The meeting was attended by Secretary, PD&MD; Deputy Commissioners of Border Districts like Jammu, Baramulla, Kupwara, Bandipora, Rajouri, Poonch, Kathua, and Samba; DG, PD&MD; Director, Expenditure Division-I and many other concerned officers.
The Chief Secretary emphasized upon giving special focus to creation of all the facilities in these 1800 border villages located across 8 districts of the UT. He observed that people there should have no need to migrate to other places for availing such services and opportunities.
He enjoined upon them to create a checklist of all the amenities like presence of school, health center, metalled road, quality power supply, street lights and other facilities. He further directed review of functioning of rural institutions like Panchayats, Patwars and Anganwadi Centres in these villages so that their performance is up to mark.
He asked them to take the feedback from public about the developmental works and facilities created for them. He also emphasised on creating assets like AmritSarovars, play fields in border panchayats as well for the overall benefit of people inhabiting these frontier areas.
The Secretary, PD&MD in his presentation informed that an Annual Action Plan (AAP) of Rs 50.00 Cr has been approved for the financial year 2023-24 under the scheme ‘Samridh SeemaYojana’ meant for development of such areas. He also revealed that during previous financial year an amount of about Rs 29.00 Cr was spent under this yojana for the upliftment of these habitations.
He also said that the scheme aims at promoting border tourism, developing tourism related infrastructure, skill development training and capacity building/ livelihood generation for people living in border areas.
Moreover its objectives includes development of agriculture/ horticulture & allied activities, decentralized renewal energy facilities such as solar dryers, solar mills, biomass-powered cold storage, solar pumps etc.
Similarly it envisages creation of modern infrastructure like smart classes & smart labs in its schools.
On the occasion the Chief Secretary highlighted the need for use of IT tools for geo-tagging & asset mapping, outcome monitoring & gap-analysis for improving results under the scheme.