Zubair reviews developmental activities in Panchayat Halqa Safapora under B2V program

GANDERBAL : The Commissioner Secretary, Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs, Zubair Ahmad concluded two-day visit to Ganderbal today as part of the 4th Edition of the flagship ‘Back to Village’ program of the Government of Jammu & Kashmir.

During his visit to the district, Zubair took on-the-spot review of the developmental works in Panchayat Halqa Safapora-C.

He held extensive deliberations with the concerned government officials, Panchayat Representatives, local citizens and the youth of the area to seek their feedback on the developmental interventions made in the said Panchayat as part of B2V program.

The Panchayat Representatives of the area and the locals expressed satisfaction over the accomplishment of the developmental commitments made in the previous B2V programs.

Outlining the essence of the ‘Back to Village’ Programme initiated by J&K Government in 2019, Mr Zubair said this unique program is an innovative policy framework initiated by the Government of Jamu & Kashmir aimed at participatory and bottom-up planning for developmental works through public outreach and active involvement of local Panchayat Representatives.

He asked the officers to undertake needs assessment in each village, capture area-specific developmental & economic potential and regularly collect feedback on delivery of Government schemes/programmes to fill the developmental gaps through appropriate interventions and correctives at the grassroots level. “This will help the Government to accomplish the basic objective of the B2V program of ensuring equitable development,” he said and urged the locals especially the youth to come forward and take benefit of the government schemes and initiatives.

He said the focus of the ongoing 4th Edition of the ‘Back to Village programme – B2V4’ launched last week is on youth, skills, self-employment, good governance and strengthening Panchayati Raj at grassroots level.

A special session was organised for PRI members and participants about use of Janbhagidari portal to know about the schemes and the developmental activities under execution in their Panchayat. They were asked to make effective use of this online tool to monitor such activities in their respective areas.

The PRI members, public and other participants were also apprised about Aapki Zameen – Aapki Nigarani and My Schemes portal.

The Commissioner/ Secretary, Department of Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs and Culture distributed land passbooks among the locals.

Separate Gram Sabha and Mahila Sabha was also organised to assess the issues faced by the people living in rural areas especially the women.

Zubair also visited the Government College for Engineering & Technology, Safapora and some local Government Schools and interacted with the faculty and the staff there.

During his interaction with the faculty members at GCET Safapora, Mr Zubair asked Principal of the institution, Mr Rauf Ahmad Khan to comprehensively project the infrastructure requirements so that the institution comes up as a full-fledged Engineering College. He also called for preparing industry-ready and employable engineers through market-oriented engineering and skill development courses.

A cultural event was also organised on the occasion by the Department of Culture.

On the conclusion of his two-day visit today, Zubair also visited Sale Outlet of FCS&CA Department in the area to take stock of its functioning. He also interacted with the local officials of FCS&CA Deptt.

DDC Member Safapora, Abdul Rashid, BDC Chairman Safapora, Gowher Reshi, Sarpanch, Safapora-C, Jehangir Kuchay and other PRI members also participated in the events.

Feroz Yahya, ASP Ganderbal, Naseer Ahmad Baba, AD FCS&CA, Jagmeet Singh, ExEn, Jal Shakti, Hakeem Aaqib Javid, BDO Wakura/Safapora and Javaid Ahmad, Tehsildar Lar were alos present on the occasion.