Bhubaneswar, May 10: A special body will be set up to monitor utilisation of funds collected from mine owners for the development and welfare programmes in the mining areas.

The special body, called special purpose vehicle to be headed by Odisha’s chief secretary, will be registered under the Societies Registration Act. As per recommendations of the Central Empowered Committee, 50 per cent of the additional net present value, collected from mining lease holders, will be utilised for development at the mining villages, gram panchayats and peripheral areas.

Around 9 lakh households at 3,000 villages will be benefited under the Rs 400 crore scheme. Bharatiya Samrudhi Investment & Consultancy Services Limited (BASIX), a specialised consultant agency, has been engaged to conduct a field survey about requirement of people and prepare a detailed project report within two months.

Chief secretary Bijay Patnaik directed the officials to prepare a work plan to ensure better quality of living conditions for the people in these areas.

Some broad areas of intervention such as inter-village and inter-hamlet connectivity, water supply and toilet in households, quality power supply with dedicated transformer for each village, adequate irrigation facility, afforestation, construction of anganwadi centres in each village, skill development of the villagers as per their need and employable opportunities have been identified.

The special purpose vehicle will be responsible for co-ordination, planning, monitoring and channelising of funds from different sources and dovetailing of various programmes for faster inclusive development.

The special body will co-ordinate implementation of the programmes and will plan to fill up the critical gaps in infrastructure and service delivery.Patnaik directed the officials to take all precautions for avoiding duplicity of efforts between the ongoing programmes and the new initiatives.