New Cabinet rolls out reforms

ITANAGAR, 13 Jun: The new state government in its first Cabinet meeting on Thursday afternoon pledged itself to a transformative reform agenda for the next five years.

“Laying the foundation for building a developed Arunachal for the next five years, the Cabinet rolled out ‘Reforms 3.0′, identifying 24 citizen-centric initiatives as part of the transformative journey, touching citizens’ lives and aspirations, and directed all departments to implement these initiatives in letter and spirit,” the CM PR cell informed in a release.

The Cabinet accorded top priority to ‘governance reforms’, with a decision to achieve 100 per cent digitalisation of the finance and planning departments to enable all government payments only through digital mode, it said.

The Cabinet also decided to initiate a bottom-up planning process for effective development, and to prepare district-level consultative vision plans to strengthen the offices of the divisional commissioners and the deputy commissioners “to improve last mile service delivery,” and to set up a committee of secretaries to “examine the existing compliances and recommend steps to enhance ease of living and ease of doing business, including repeal of old and archaic laws,” the PR cell informed.

The Cabinet further approved creating a ‘golden repository’ of state’s citizens’ data to ensure proactive scheme enrolment with no/minimal enrolment process for citizens.

“The Cabinet decided that a policy think tank, Institute for Transforming Arunachal (ITA), will be constituted to drive innovation in governance and enable socioeconomic transformation, and an administrative reforms commission will be notified to examine and provide recommendations for improved organisational structure, recruitment and staffing policies to build a lean, efficient and agile administrative structure with maximum adoption of technology,” the release stated.

“In order to provide enhanced quality of life to citizens, the Cabinet resolved to ensure 100 per cent physical and digital connectivity to all unconnected villages and administrative headquarters, for which a detailed action plan will be prepared.

“The government also decided to formulate a policy enabling top educational institutions to setup campuses in Arunachal Pradesh and also encourage participation of community-based organisations, NGOs and other CSOs in the field of education,” it added.

The state Cabinet also decided to revamp the Dulari Kanya scheme to “provide incentive to every girl child from Arunachal to encourage enrolment in graduation or professional courses; formulate and action plan for 21,000 plus women to become ‘lakhpatis’ over the next five years, earning an annual income of more than Rs 1,00,000,” the release added.

It further said that “the government decided to formulate a new farm-to-fork agricultural and horticultural policy to unlock the agri-allied sector potential of the state; revamp the Chief Minister’s Social Security Scheme for wider coverage of beneficiaries; to work towards 100 per cent saturation of DBT for all schemes, ensuring targeted and timely payments to beneficiaries; and to create a ‘digital asset inventory’ for all public infrastructure, especially schools, hospitals (SHCs, PHCs, district hospitals), anganwadi centres, etc, for proper planning and utilisation of public assets.”

The Cabinet also decided to create a new master plan to “make Itanagar-Naharlagun twin capital city future-ready and improve urban liveability.”

“To fulfill the aspirations of the youths, the government will identify and list vacancies in all departments for preparation of annual recruitment calendars,” it said, adding that “it was also decided that the SEE trinity (skill development, entrepreneurship, employment) will be launched to completely reorient the entire ecosystem in the interest of the youths and provide 25,000+ employment and self-employment opportunities to the youths in the next five years.”

Besides launching the Arunachal Olympic Sports Mission, enabling participation of sportspersons from the state in the 2028 and the 2032 Olympic Games, the government will dedicate to the youth an innovative youth policy, the Cabinet decided.

A new Arunachal industrial policy will be introduced by dovetailing with the Centre’s UNNATI scheme.

Also on the cards is notification of an ‘Arunachal Pradesh Handloom and Handicrafts Policy’ and ‘One Tribe, One Weave Mission’ to protect and promote indigenous textiles and handicrafts.

“The state government also decided to launch a new tourism policy to provide holistic experiences to domestic and foreign tourists and attract investments, and provide employment opportunities for the youths.

“The council of ministers also recommended commencement of the first Assembly session of the 8th legislative Assembly on 14 June for administrating oath to the members of the Assembly and election of the speaker and the deputy speaker,” the PR cell concluded.