Arunachal Pradesh cabinet for timely release of central funds for social schemes

ITANAGAR: The Arunachal Pradesh government has decided to press for timely release of state share against centrally sponsored social schemes in education, health and social welfare sector, a government spokesman said.

The decision was taken at a state cabinet meeting headed by Chief Minister Nabam Tuki.

As per the Centre's guidelines, a large number of employees are engaged under flagship programmes especially in critical sectors like health and education.

However, because of delay in the release of central share and thereafter state share, these flagship schemes suffer and desired output is not achieved, government spokesman Bamang Felix said in a statement here today.

Appreciating this problem, the cabinet meeting held yesterday, and after detailed deliberations, decided that the state share in critical social sector schemes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, National Health Mission and ICDS must be allocated in the beginning of the financial year and released in two installments (August and December), he said.

The cabinet also decided that the release of salaries must be only on receipt of the attendance details.

It was also discussed that with this step, the departments are directed to ensure that the purpose of these flagship schemes are achieved in letter and spirit, the spokesman added.