Pema Khandu
Arunachal Pradesh CM Pema Khandu during a meeting with major oil companies through videoconferencing. Image - Northeast Now

Aruncahl Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Wednesday held a meeting with major oil companies – Hindustan Oil Exploration Company (HOECL), Oil India Limited (OIL) and GeoEnpro to mobilize additional revenue resources from oil fields in Arunachal Pradesh.

The Chief Minister welcomed the oil companies as part of Team Arunachal to transform Arunachal as investment destination in mining sector. He said the State Government is expecting more crude oil production this year, which will enhance the revenue resources.

Assuring all cooperation of the state government for exploration of oil in the state, the Chief Minister urged the companies to maximize benefit towards local employment and in expanding the CSR activities. He urged the companies to focus mainly on health and education sector.

Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein asked the oil companies to work on skilling the youths of the state as majority of them are unable to find jobs due to lack of skills.

Chief Secretary Satya Gopal urged the companies to maximize the percentage of local employment to almost 80 present.

Also present on the occasion was Arunachal Pradesh Mineral Development Director-cum-chairperson Dasanglu Pul.

Chief Minister Khandu on the day also reviewed the status of various Prime Minister and Chief Minister flagship programmes in the State with the deputy commissioners through video conferencing.

The facility was arranged by National Informatics Centre (NIC) here at the Chief Minister’s Office, which used Unnati – an app to monitor important schemes through videoconference.

Drawing satisfaction from the report presented, the Chief Minister said the review meeting through videoconferencing will be held every month and asked the Deputy Commissioners to improve upon the sectors flagged in the meeting.

“Every three months we have to report to the Prime Minister’s Office on status of important flagships programmes in the state. These are the area of most concern to the Prime Minister,” said Khandu.

He drew the attention of the Deputy Commissioner to work on improving the State Owned Revenue (SOR) sources. He said the performing districts in revenue sector will see no dearth of funds from the State Government.

Appreciating the East Kameng district administration for best performance in ‘Sarkar Aapke Dwar’ scheme, the Chief Minister urged the other district authorities to take cue from it to determine the effectiveness of the programme based on the baseline survey.

“Sarkar Aapke Dwar should not only be an event to distribute forms and applications. We must ensure that we are able to give direct benefits to the beneficiaries,” said Khandu.

He urged the DCs to maximize enrolment for beneficiaries under Ayushman Bharat and CMAAY schemes, including maximize the use of GeM portal for procurement. He asked the DCs to expedite on issuing land possession certificates and to carry out bank loan recovery drive to bring back the confidence of the banks. He said many important schemes linked with the banks are unable to draw more beneficiaries as banks are suffering with liability from non-performing assets created through unrecovered loans.

The Chief Minister also took review of implementation of Prime Minister Awaas Yojana (Urban), PMAY (rural) credit link subsidy, Mukha Mantri Rogi Kalyan Kosh, review of health and wellness centres with gap analysis of such centres district wise, Saubhagya scheme, etc.

Damien Lepcha is Northeast Now Correspondent in Arunachal Pradesh. He can be reached at: [email protected]