Principal Secretary Finance, Navin K Choudhary, today called upon the Department of Information & Public Relations (DIPR) to highlight major welfare programmes/schemes of State and Central Governments through all available means to educate the masses in the State so that they can avail full benefits of such programmes.Underlining the importance of the DIPR, the Principal Secretary said that Information is face of the Government to highlight all the programmes and policies through print, electronic, publications and other means to aware the general masses enabling them to reap the benefits of all welfare and developmental programmes. He issued specific instructions to Secretary Information and Director Information to manage distribution of pamphlets/publications containing all major welfare initiatives of the Government among all the newly elected members of Municipal Corporations/Committees and Panchayats for their knowledge so that they can optimally contribute for the efficient implementation these programmes at the grass root level.Navin said this while chairing three separate pre-budget meetings of the Departments of Information & Public Relations, Revenue, Relief, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management and Finance here today.
The DIPR was represented by Secretary, Information, Sarmad Hafeez, Director Information & Public Relations, Tariq Ahmed Zargar and other senior officers.The Department of Revenue, Relief, Rehabilitation & Disaster Management was represented by Financial Commissioner, Revenue, Dr. Pawan Kotwal, Commissioner/Secretary Revenue, Shahid Anayatullah, Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Sanjeev Verma, Secretary, PHE, Irrigation, Flood Control and Disaster Management, Farooq Shah, Relief Commissioner (Migrants), ML Raina and other concerned officers, while as the Department of Finance was represented by Director General Funds, KK Gupta, DG Accounts & Treasuries, MY Pandit, DG Local Fund Audits, Neelam Gupta, Commissioner Excise, Talat Parvez, Commissioner Sales Tax, PKBhat, MD, SFC, Mohammad Farooq Thokar, DG Audit and Inspections, Fayaz Ahmed Lone and other officers of allied departments.The team of officers from Administrative Department comprising, Director Budget, Imtiyaz Ahmed Wani, Directors Expenditures, Shabir Ahmed Khan, Parvez Ahmed Kakroo and others also attended the meetings. Some Deputy Commissioners joined the meeting through video conferencing.
The Principal Secretary held detailed discussions with the officers of these departments on the budgetary requirements for the year 2019-20. He called upon the officers to release the budgeted allocations to the subordinate offices immediately after they get the same from the Finance Department so that they make timely expenditures under various heads. He emphasized the need for speeding up the pace of all on-going projects and achieving the targets well in time line. He also suggested to identify the old projects which have not been completed for the many years and asked for projecting these for funding under the “Languishing Projects Programme” instead of CAPEX budget.Navin also suggested the Departments to constitute their own Revenue Infrastructure Development Funds to generate revenue for meeting the allied internal expenses by imposing minor fees/charges for the services being rendered by them. He also called for judicious use of resources by curbing wasteful expenditures and asked the officers to discourage expenditures on refreshments and on avoidable matters.The Principal Secretary also had detailed deliberations with the Deputy Commissioners on allied issues and listened to their problems and requirements. He assured to consider and meeting the projected needs of the Deputy Commissioners.FC Revenue, Secretary Information and Officers of Finance Department gave overview of the budgetary requirements for their departments for the next financial year.