Bhubaneswar: The Odisha chief secretary, AP Padhi, directed the line departments to build up a shelf of projects so that the launching and implementation of the projects undertaken with the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) fund would be expedited.
” The line departments to identify and build up a shelf of projects at least three times of the annual accrual in the DMF Fund under high priority and other priority areas indicated in the Odisha District Mineral Foundation Trust Rules”, Padhi said adding, ” The high priority items include drinking water, health, education, women & child welfare, nutrition, while the other priority items include infrastructure, electricity, irrigation.” According to him these projects are to be forwarded to the respective DMF Trust Boards through the state planning & convergence department for their consideration.
He also said that the line department should strengthen their field staff to take up the project immediately and completed the same within the time schedule.
The chief secretary was reviewing the status of the DMF in the state, here on Saturday. The development commissioner, R Balakrishnan, finance principal secretary TK Pandey, steel & mines principal secretary RK Sharma, and the collectors of mineral bearing districts like Keonjhar, Sundergarh, Jharsuguda, Jajpur, Angul were present in the review meeting.
The total contribution received in the DMF Trust Fund till October, 2017 is Rs3548 crore. The total amount allocated for projects, schemes and works sanctioned for funding out of DMF is Rs1862 crore. The DMF collection in the districts of Angul, Jajpur, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar and Sundargarh comes to about Rs 3414 crore.
