N’PADA VILLAGERS INVOLVED IN IAP PROJECTS
N’PADA VILLAGERS INVOLVED IN IAP PROJECTS
Saturday, 27 December 2014 | AJIT PANDA | NUAPADA | in Bhubaneswar
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The people of Soseng village of Nuapada district are happy that they have now a road with a bridge to connect their village to the nearest bus stop at Barkot although it is located 20 km far from their village.
Not only that, they also take credit of doing the work themselves. “The district administration provided us fund and we did the work,” they boast. They appreciate the move of the district administration to involve them in the implementation of the project through Village Development Committees (VDCs).“It was not easy because the Maoists were not in support of the bridge. They opposed the constructions initially but they had to budge in the end,” they say. Being encouraged by the initiatives of the district administration, the villagers have now proposed many more works. “We have proposed laying of a road from Rupiam to Kakermanji which connects to the district headquarters directly via Kermeli and Tanwat villages,” say the villagers. “It will need construction of a ghat road of 7-8 km distance and we will get the shortest route to reach the district headquarters,” they inform. The people have also proposed a number of other works of their need and the administration is agreed to take up those.
The effort of the district administration to involve people of the Maoist- hit pockets of Nuapada district under the leadership of incumbent district Collector Jaykumar V. is encouraging.“These Panchayats need much attention and the people have to be taken into confidence” says Jaykumar.“We have thus formed VDCs in every village and given the responsibility of all the construction works to the people. The officials only provide technical guidance whenever necessary,” he adds.
Jaykumar has also initiated a few more innovative works in these two Panchayats, which have been highly appreciated by the people. The streets of Jamgaon village and its hamlets are now lighted at night by 28 solar lights.“The situation now has changed; we sit under the light posts and discuss about our village development,” say the villagers. The Collector is now planning to instal street lights in other villages of Sunabeda, Soseng, Nangalbod and Ghatmal Panchayats. Another innovative work undertaken by the administration is installation of solar pumps to supply safe drinking water. Submersible pumps have been fitted in existing tube wells, which run during the day getting electricity from solar panels and fill the overhead water tanks. “We are now relieved of the burden of fetching water from the nullah (stream) located more than a mile from our village” says Goinda Bai of Cherechuan village.
The overhead tank supplies sufficient water to 25 households of this village. Such water supply systems have also been installed in Khuligaon and Majhagaon villages of Sunabeda plateau, which cater to the needs of more than 80 households. The unit cost of each of these drinking water projects is Rs1.20 lakh excluding the cost of the tube wells. The administration has planned to instal such projects in all the tribal hostels of the district. Funds for all these projects in the Maoist hit areas of the district have been allocated from Central grant called Integrated Action Plan (IAP).
Nuapada is one of the 18 LWE (Left Wing Extremism) districts of Odisha, which gets Rs30 crores every year as block grant from the Centre under IAP. This fund was misutilised in the past due to corrupt practices. There were complaints that corrupt officials in connivance with contractors and leaders misappropriated funds under IAP.“But under the present Collector, things have changed,” says a political worker.
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