In an attempt to bring more efficiency in its significant and far-reaching SDG programme, the YSR led Andhra Pradesh Government retained and appointed its top lieutenant Dr Sameer Sharma, a 1985 batch IAS officer and Ex Chief Secretary of his state as Chief Executive to Chief Minister (CE2CM) for implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) upon his retirement in Nov. 2022. He has been given the rank and status of Ex-officio Chief Secretary to Government of Andhra Pradesh in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO).
Sustainable Development Goals or SDG as popularly called, is an attempt to bring climate sensitive actionable policies and meaningful efforts by governments at global and local levels to build an inclusive and sustainable future for the planet. At the core of the SDG is the mammoth task to minimise the effects and prevent some of the worst feared global climate threats from playing at local level.
As Chief Executive to Chief Minister, Dr Sameer Sharma will work with all the departments, officers, and other entities connected to SDGs of the state and increase the GSDP of Andhra Pradesh. Also, he will specifically assist the Chief Minister in performance assessment of AIS officers (in their APARs) on the SDG indicators. Planning Department and its organisations such as Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Andhra Pradesh State Development Planning Society and the SDG Cells have been directed to report to Dr Sharma as well as assist him in the Chief Minister’s Office.
YSR government in its acceptance of the undeniable threat the climate change brings to the semi-arid state, its people, agriculture and vast coast lines, has adopted the 17 point SDG framework of NITI Aayog for measuring the performance and ranking of the districts. It has further aligned the SDGs with the State’s budget and has marked it as a performance indicator for some of the Central and State schemes and has formulated Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) at the district levels to improve the performance and monitoring at village and ward levels.
Andhra Pradesh was ranked No. 1 in terms of Affordable and clean energy (SDG-7), 2nd in Life in water (SDG-14) and an overall No.3 with a composite score of 72, led by Kerala ranked No.1 and followed by Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu at rank No. 2.
It is said that the world will see a possible extinction of 1 Million+ global species, a decline of over 60% of marine fisheries, need for doubling of food production in a short span of next 40 years and water scarcity which will affect an estimated 65% of the world population as early as 2025.
Indian Bureaucracy Dot Com wishes Shri Sameer Sharma the very best.