Nearly eight months after a ceremonial setting of a foundation stone (on January 30), work is set to begin at the site of the integrated development centre (IDC) in Digha village of Saranda in Jharkhand's West Singhbhum district, a senior rural development ministry official informs. The IDC is one of the ten such one-stop shops for governance delivery that are to come up in Saranda as a part of the Saranda Development Plan (SDP), a development package concentrating on six panchayats. The Rs 264 crore Plan had been introduced by the union rural development (RD) ministry as a development offensive against the Maoists who had been active in the region for nearly a decade before being pushed out in August 2011 after a paramilitary operation. The district adminsitration of West Singhbhum had been put in charge of the implementation.

Union rural development minister, Jairam Ramesh, will be visiting Saranda on September 12 to take stock of the developmental works being carried out with funding from the centre. Apart from visiting the site to officially announce the commencement of work at the Digha IDC site, the minister will review the progress of some of the other components of the plan like the disbursal of Indira Awaas Yojana funds, the 130-kilometre road network under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana.

The district administration and the state and union governments had come under fire from the various stakeholders (Saranda villagers, activists) in the development offensive for delays that have held up the project for this long. The IDC was to be built at a cost of nearly Rs 6 crore by the Steel Authority of India Limited which has iron mines in Saranda. The delays were being attributed to the the internal processes of SAIL in awarding the tender for the project. However, SAIL authorities had said in June that the complete lack of roads and other infrastructure in the region was impeding the speedy setting up of the IDC. The contract had finally gone to Hindustan Prefab, a Kolkata-based company.

Reacting to the news, Bilarman Kandulna, a panchayat representative from Digha said, "It is welcome news. However, the delay that we saw with Digha IDC is fast becoming characterstic of all development work that has been planned for the six panchayats. We are pushing the administration to work concertedly on implementing the project. Otherwise, it will just become another pipedream for the people of Saranda."