Ranchi: In their maiden meeting on Friday, members of the newly inducted state cabinet in Jharkhand were tasked to identify the departments which could generate higher revenue and cut down spending on unwanted infrastructure development.
Chief minister Hemant Soren, who chaired the cabinet meeting at the state secretariat in the evening, also asked the ministers to prepare welfare schemes, particularly in remote areas, ST/SC regions and hilly residential places, for their respective departments for the upcoming financial year. The budgets for these proposed schemes will then be tabled in the state assembly session early next year.
According to the chief ministers, the cabinet members were directed to not just limit their departmental review meetings in Ranchi but to hold the meetings at district levels. "Our ministers will go to district and block levels, hold review meetings of existing schemes, evaluate the old schemes and find out how they can be made viable in the current context," Hemant said after the meeting, stressing that the ministers should also review periodically the status of promotion of their staff and ensure that the benefits are not denied to the deserving employees.
A statement issued by the CMO in the evening also said the ministers were also asked to run background checks of their personal secretaries and personal staff before hiring them and ensure that controversial characters do not get the jobs. "The new ministers were also urged to visit areas out of their respective constituencies, obtain feedback on regional officers during field visits and provide reports to the CM periodically," it said, highlighting that court cases in their respective ministers should be reviewed properly so that govt doesn't lose them.
Asking the ministers to review the long-pending projects of their respective departments and ascertain the delays behind the implementation, the chief minister added that they should hold press conferences from time to time to provide information to the media about the achievements of their departments.