NEW DELHI, June 17 - Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal today gave an SOS to the Centre urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come to the rescue of the State government to deal with the flood situation.
The Chief Minister, who was participating in the fourth meeting of the NITI Aayog Governing Council here today, began his speech by highlighting the grim flood situation in Assam where the death toll has reached nine.
Sonowal also said that Assam�s transition to GST by and large has been smooth and hassle-free. The tax collection is lower than expected primarily because of low rates of tax on items of mass consumption and lower gain in services sector in comparison to more developed states, he said. However, there has been a steady rise in revenue collection, he added.
The Chief Minister said as advised by the NITI Aayog, the seven-year strategy plan and three-year action plans have been developed for different sectors in the State, keeping in mind the sustainable development goals.
�Our State�s own annual revenue increased to Rs 15,776 crore during 2017-18 against Rs 12,847 crore in 2015-16. The expenditure during 2015-16 was Rs 41,929 crore which shot up to Rs 70,105 crore during 2017-18. The capital expenditure during 2017-18 increased to Rs 12,817 crore against Rs 4,919 crore during 2015-16, an increase of 160 per cent,� he said.
The Assam government has launched the Chief Minister�s Samagra Gramya Unnayan Yojana with a financial outlay of Rs 30,000 crore to be implemented in all 25,425 villages of the State. With the objective of doubling farmer�s income by 2022, the scheme focuses on agriculture, plantation, fishery, handloom, sericulture, dairy, poultry, cottage industry including processing and market linkage, Sonowal said.
On implementing the Ayushman Bharat scheme, he said, �We have already initiated steps for operationalising 691 health and wellness
centres by upgrading sub-centres with adequate manpower and infrastructure... We aim to operationalise 100 health and wellness centres within August 15, 2018.�
Sonowal also informed that Assam has seven aspirational districts. The Deputy Commissioners of these districts are formulating district action plans and two districts have already submitted their plans. �Steps are being taken for implementation seven flagship programmes in these districts in a time-bound manner,� he added.
