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Friday, April 27, 2018

Giving Puducherry a ten year vision plan.

Here are my opening remarks today at the Meeting of the State Planning Board on Annual Budget 2018-19.
- We have financially scrapped through last year and could pay our committed bills till the end of last financial year.
- However at the cost of certain essential areas like Civic amenities and rural care.
- We have areas of revenue generation where we could have generated additional resources. Hence we need to correct that this year.
- After presentation of the annual plan by the Secretary Planning and detailed deliberations by the Board and the Cabinet the budget cap of Rupees 7530 Crores was approved.
- In my concluding remarks I asked officers to flag policy and financial issues and place matters before the cabinet for timely resolutions.
- There are three key players to improve matters further.
- First the role of administration leadership.
- They must attend and build from what they have. And address internal managment issues like training, capacity building, rationalisation of work force, redressal of public grievance and field delivery.
- For the cabinet I said. They must meet more often and take calibrated risks to address policy and financial issues.
- They need to inform and communicate their respective constituencies of the role people can play in sanitation, safety, skill learning, sustainable agriculture and public health. This will save resources and enable more quality service to the people.
- I requested our two members of the Parliament to engage with Central Ministries in addressing UT issues which will reduce time pressure on Secretaries for frequent travels to Delhi. Thereby being away from Puducherry.
- I assured that in the coming Governor’s Conf in June I shall raise the following issues a) include UT in the 15 th Central Finance Commision
- b) Central Govt to bear pension expense as is in Delhi)
- C) 100 % Central finding of Centrally Sponsored Scheme as is the case with other UTs.
- D) Setting up of High Court Bench at Puducherry
- E) waiver of legacy loan of Rupees 7000 Crores by central government.
- F) Setting up of Family and CBI Court. In the end I requested the CM and tasked the CS to bring out a vision document for Puducherry and Karaikal for next ten years which specifies meeting of annual targets in areas of water, sanitation, public Health, skill development, agriculture, Tourism, renewable power, education, rita Development and all other priority sectors. With a road map for finances.
- By this the the Board passed the budget projection of 7530 Crores for the current financial year.
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