Orissa ranked fifth in Centre's 'Twenty Point Programme'

Orissa is ranked fifth among all states in the country in the April-July period of the current financial year in terms of implementation of the Twenty Point Programme of the Government of India.

The state has shown considerable improvement in the said period in programmes like construction of houses under the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), ensuring food security for the BPL (Below Poverty Line) families, construction of roads under the Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and electrification of villages under Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY).

The state's commendable performance on these fronts has helped it to climb to fifth spot from 23rd rank in 2007-08. Orissa is ranked only after Goa, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Punjab which occupy the top four slots in the implementation of the Centre's Twenty Point Programme.

"A high-level review meeting was held recently by the Department of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India to review the status of implementation of the Twenty Point Programme. It was decided to put in place a monitoring system to check the progress of the programme and also conduct an Impact Assessment Study for knowing the effectiveness of the programme”, an official source told Business Standard.Meanwhile, the Orissa government has decided to constitute monitoring committees at the state, district and block levels to check the progress achieved in the implementation of the Twenty Point Programme.While the state Chief Minister will head the state level committee, the district level committee is likely to be chaired by a minister, MLA or the district collector. The committee at the block level is set to be headed by the block development officer.

The areas covered under the Twenty Point Programme are poverty eradication, food security, labour welfare, housing for all, clean drinking water, education for all, child welfare, social security, improvement of slums and IT-enabled e-governance to name a few.