GOALPARA, April 6 � With special emphasis on the theme, �social security and women�s empowerment�, the second quarter of the three-day special programme, Raijor Padulit Raijor Sarkar (RPRS) got under way from today in the district.
Talking to this correspondent, Deputy Commissioner JVN Subramanyam said that the programme began today with cleanliness activities in public places by school and college students under the Mukhyamatrir Asomor Nirmal Sabuj Abhiyan (MANSA). Plantation of saplings was also done which was followed by visits to the nearest public institutions, like anganwadi centre, fair price shop, mini PHC /health centre, active SHGs etc., and then the RPRS sabhas which were held from 10.30 a.m. These sabhas were chaired by team leaders and a large number of villagers gathered and participated. Some of the grievances aired during the interactive session which did not require any policy making or funds were disposed of on the spot. Other grievances will be written down in a prescribed pre-printed form which will later be uploaded on a RPRS website where there is a mechanism for tracking and monitoring till the grievances are finally disposed of.
Deputy Commissioner Subramanyam informed that altogether 29 teams, each having 10-12 persons has been constituted to cover all the 81 gaon panchayats in the district. The objective of the programme is to enhance the quality of governance by raising awareness on various Government schemes and to access the needs of various places, besides identifying the shortcomings in the service delivery mechanism and bringing the Government to the doorsteps of the people. He also said that the whole idea behind the programme is to bring in a transparent mechanism of governance and to reduce the gap between the public services and expectations of the people by going in for self-auditing/appraisal of the schemes implemented so far by the Government itself. He also added that despite many challenges, significant strides have been made and progress achieved on the development front in the district and out of 5,124 grievances recorded in the 1st quarter of RPRS in January this year, 5,025 have been disposed of by the respective department while a total of 1,419 applications have been sent to the State nodal department, either for policy decisions or for fund allocations.
To give wide coverage and also to raise awareness, the district administration has developed materials for giving adequate publicity including use of the public address system and print materials, hoardings besides the internet and the local press, Subramanyam added.
Meanwhile, Project Director, DRDA, Khanin Choudhury said that all the works pertaining to the RPRS programme are going on smoothly and as the departments involved under the second quarter RPRS programme are Social Welfare, Food and Civil Supplies, Panchayat and Rural Development, Labour and Employment, Education, Handloom and Textiles, he expects better participation from the people in the programme and also more grievances compared to the first quarter. He also informed that most of the grievances in the first quarter of the RPRS programme were related IAY houses, installation of hand tube wells and for repairing of roads. Meanwhile, Subramanyam inaugurated the programme by undertaking cleanliness activities along with school students under the MANSA programme besides planting saplings at the Kalyanpur High School under the Kalyanpur GP of Balijana block.
