ITANAGAR, May 19: The State Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj (SIRD&PR) organized a series of workshops on ‘geographical information system (GIS)-based gram panchayat (GP) planning under MGNREGA’ at the civil secretariat here from 15 to 17 May.
Around 50 state, district and block level technical resource team members representing 12 community development blocks in Papum Pare and Lower Subansiri districts, along with officials from the rural development (RD) department and the SIRD&PR attended the programme, which was aimed at reorienting the officials on various tools for GIS-based planning.
RD Secretary Rinchin Tashi outlined the initiatives being taken by the state government to complete the entire process of having GIS-based plans for the 228 GPs in the state “on a war footing, within July, 2019.”
He urged the participating officials to use the learning process to ensure early completion of the plans preparation.
Tashi also highlighted “the importance of renewed emphasis given by the union RD ministry under the MGNREGA implementation using GIS-based planning as a means to an end in achieving saturation of development aspirations of the gram panchayats by 2022.”
SIRD&PR Director (in-charge) Vijay Kumar Sharma during the interactive and hands-on practice sessions urged the participants to ensure timely submission of the draft plans.
He suggested that activities and projects approved for the current year (2019-20) should be incorporated in the proposed GIS-based plans for the GPs in the state.
The union RD ministry’s programme officer Neha Saxena and project officer Kiran Padhy, along with senior programme officer Jagadeesh Menon and programme officer Hemant Sharma from the SPWD-GIZ, covered a wide range of topics as resource persons.
This was followed by an interface with members of the gram panchayat committee and the gram sabhas of Papum Pare district on Saturday.
Thirty persons interacted with the resource persons on various issues.
