Odisha: SC constituted committee to review OMBADC funds utilisation

The Central Empowered Committee (CEC) on Odisha Mineral Bearing Areas Development Corporation (OMBADC) constituted by the Supreme Court on Tuesday reviewed the status of the projects with state Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy and other officials in Lokseba Bhawan.

The five-member committee under the chairmanship of PV Jayakrishnan will visit OMBADC areas in Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts to see the actual state of the projects at the ground level. They will visit different places up to November 2 and on their return will submit their report to the Supreme Court.

According to a statement issued by the Chief Secretary office, "OMBADC phase-l is under implementation in 691 villages spreading over 121 Gram Panchayats in 29 block of 8 districts, Anugul, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Jharsuguda, Koraput, Kenojhar, Mayurbhanj and Sundargarh".

In this phase, around Rs 867 crore was allotted to the state under CAMPA funding, mainly the drinking water, housing, skill development, farm forestry and social forestry works have been undertaken with this fund, the statement stated.

"CEO OMBADC, Uma Nanduri appraised in the meeting that 29,829 housing units 244 drinking water projects and skill development for 200 ST and SC youths had been taken up. Besides, block and avenue plantation, seeding distribution, assisted natural regeneration and soil moisture conservative projects have been taken up so far, around Rs 860 crore has been released against these projects" the statement added.

Under phase-ll OMBADC, around Rs 16000 crore is available with the state against this the Oversight Authority constituted under justice AK Patnaik has sanctioned a total number of 15 projects in seven sectors estimated around Rs 10,000 crore. The major sectors include drinking water, education, health, livelihood, rural connectivity, environmental protection, water conservation, pollution control, and soil and moisture conservation, the projects under phase-ll are in the first stage of implantation, the statement said.