J&K set to achieve ODF+ status by August 15: CS

Srinagar, Aug 4: Chief Secretary Arun Kumar Mehta Friday said that Jammu and Kashmir was set to achieve Open Defecation-Free Plus (ODF ) status by August 15.

An official spokesman in a statement issued here said that Mehta impressed upon the officers of the Rural Development Department (RDD) to work in coordination with each other to realise the set targets of providing ‘Housing to All’ and prevalence of ‘Zero Poverty’ in J&K by the year 2024.

He was speaking in a meeting called to review the overall functioning of the RDD.

In his address, the chief secretary said that the accomplishment of goals like developing rural infrastructure and ensuring the sanitation of rural areas were the thrust areas of the department.

He said that as discussed time and again, the officers of the department, especially those manning the local offices should work towards making these areas livable offering best of the facilities to the rural population.

Mehta said that J&K was going to cover about 1.9 lakh houses under PMAY this year which were enough to saturate the housing needs of all the houseless persons here. He said that J&K had made tremendous progress on many parameters during the last few years including creation of AmritSarovars, door-to-door collection of waste, and construction of houses under PMAY.

The chief secretary said that J&K had made tremendous progress in sanitation under Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen and hopefully each of its villages was going to achieve the status of ODF by the upcoming Independence Day.

He emphasised on enhancing the capacity of employees so that they were able to reorient their thinking to meet the targets on time.

Presenting the performance of the Department, Commissioner Secretary, RDD, MandeepKaur said that J&K had been among the top performing states and union territories in implementation of Swachh Bharat Mission (G) by securing ODF status to all of its villages.

She said that the department had constructed around 2607 AmritSarovars so far and had issued 13.9 lakh job cards. Kaur said that under PMAY (G), 1,39,529 houses had been completed so far and 2,02,603 were to be completed soon.

It was revealed that the department was successful in creating thousands of employment opportunities for the rural youth under the JKRLM, SVEP, and MKSP.

It was informed that 83,062 Self Help Groups (SHGs) had been created to which the revolving funds to the tune of Rs 124.59 crore were provided through credit linkages.

Similarly, under the Integrated Farming Cluster (MKSP), two new projects in 10 blocks of 10 districts to support 12,000 SHG members (300 per IFC) had been sanctioned during the current financial year worth Rs 16 crore.

Under the SVEP Phase II, two units of four blocks were approved with a budget outlay of Rs 1.115 crore for four years with a target of supporting 4034 enterprises.

Till now Rs 2.10 crore funds have been released as CEF supporting 559 enterprises so far.