As part of the ongoing DISHA Week being celebrated from 25th to 29th June, 2018 to mark the successful completion of 2 years of the District Development Coordination & Monitoring Committee (DISHA), the Union Minister of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Mines, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, held wide ranging discussions on the DISHA initiative with Special Secretaries of the states/ UTs at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi today. The discussions centeredon various topics related to DISHA initiative and ways and means to make it a powerful and potent tool of participative governance. The Minister of State for Rural Development, Shri Ram Kripal Yadav also shared his views in the meeting.The UnionRural Development Minister interacted live with 7 Members of Parliament during the course of District Level DISHA Committee Meetings in districts of Dindori, Jodhpur, Jashpur, Sikar, Jalaun, Jabalpur and Sambhal. During the meeting, UnionRural Development Minister discussed about the incremental effectiveness of these committee in pursuing the convergence agenda.
Shri Tomar also interacted with 36 States Rural Development Department Secretaries, wherein he stressed on implementing the convergence of Schemes in rural areas. Awards of appreciation were conferred for exemplary work towards regular organization of DISHA meetings to Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Mizoram and Uttarakhand.Addressing the gathering, Union Minister of Rural Development said that government schemes should be implemented in a time bound manner and the money that is spent on such schemes should commensurate with the progress at the grass root level. He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has right from the beginning always wanted to change the perception of government in the minds of the people and DISHA is an efficacious tool and step in that direction. Shri Tomar said that the seed for this scheme was implanted during the NDA government led by Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and has been improvised and taken forward from being a tool for monitoring schemes for Rural Development and broad based by incorporating other flagship schemes across various ministries of the government.Shri Tomar,hailing the DISHA initiative, said that data regarding 42 schemes of the ministry are available at one glance and therefore it makes it easy to identify which districts are lagging behind scheme wise and accordingly corrective action can be taken. He urged all MPs and other representatives toincrease their participation and also the number of meetings to ensure that the schemes are better implemented with a focus on those schemes that have been lagging behind. He also suggested that number of meetings held should become one of the criteria for the DISHA Awards.
The Minister of State for Rural Development, Shri Ram Kripal Yadav said that the agenda of this government is the benefit of Gaon, Gareeb and Kisan and that all efforts of the government are directed in this direction.Shri Yadav said 70% of India’s population lives in its villages and therefore the progress of India depends on the progress of the villages and DISHA is an effective tool for monitoring the progress of various schemes of the government at different levels.On the occasion, State Level Guidelines were released clearing way for constitution of State DISHA committees under the chairmanship of respective Chief Ministers. District Committees Guidelines were also revamped and launched. State DISHA committees are envisaged with the objective of ensuring quality of expenditure, particularly in the context of optimization of public funds spent under different programmes of Central Government and other escalated issues from District Disha Committees. The Union Minister also launched a Meeting Management Software to serve the objective of end-to-end solution of paperless meeting. This software will help in preparing Meeting Notice, Agenda setting, communicatingwith members, Circulating agenda, meeting minutes and also generate triggers on items which require follow-up action.
An e-book on DISHA was also released whichlucidly elaborates background of DISHA initiative, learning experience, requirement of DISHA Dashboard its features and user manual, and guidelines of district and state level DISHA committees.During the DISHA week ‘DISHA Meetings’ are being organized under the chairmanship of Member of Parliament, across all the districts, to monitor the progress of 42 schemes across the country. The most notable aspect of these meetings is the effective use of IT tools in making the agenda more focused and result oriented. The cutting edge One Stop – ‘DISHA Dashboard‘ created bythe Rural Development Ministry has been designed to facilitate data driven decision making. Real time data from 18 schemes of 9 ministries have been integrated with the Dashboard and other 12 schemes of 8 Ministries are in theprocess of integration. One Time Passwords or OTPs are being provided to all MPs to ensure that such key data indicators remain protected from misuse.