Chief Minister's District Innovation and Challenge Fund (Arunachal Pradesh)

What is the Chief Minister's District Innovation and Challenge Fund?

Chief Minister's District Innovation and Challenge Fund, commonly shortened to DICF and sometimes written as the District Innovation Fund, is a scheme of the Government of Arunachal Pradesh administered by the Department of Finance, Planning and Investment through its Planning and Investment Division. It was notified by the Finance Department on 9 June 2017 under No. FIN/E-II/20/2017, signed by the Development Commissioner (Finance, Planning and Investment).

According to that notification, the government decided to implement the fund "to ensure that public investment in the district is responsive to local requirements of the districts". In plain terms, DICF is a pot of money that districts compete for by writing a good project proposal, rather than money that is divided up between districts automatically.

Objectives listed in the notification

• Fill vital gaps in public infrastructure at district level that is not being fully utilised in the absence of a relatively small investment, the example given is a government hospital with non-functional diagnostic equipment.
• Catalyse opportunities for skill development, sustainable livelihood and entrepreneurship.
• Support schemes that have a positive impact on efficient service delivery.
• Support schemes oriented towards the social sectors; health and education.
• Support schemes targeted at the welfare of marginalised sections of society.
• Develop eco-tourism.

The district-level scheme pages of the Government of Arunachal Pradesh add four further aims: instilling a sense of competitiveness among Deputy Commissioners for developmental interventions, bringing innovation into the design, planning and implementation of critical infrastructure, introducing advanced technology to fill infrastructural gaps, and fostering partnership and participation between the state government and the community.

Who is eligible under the District Innovation and Challenge Fund?

DICF is an institutional fund, not a personal benefit. Understanding this saves a great deal of wasted effort.

Who can put up a proposal:

• Deputy Commissioners of districts in Arunachal Pradesh. The notification says the Deputy Commissioner constitutes a team of officers available in the district and conceptualises proposals for the consideration of the government.
• Within that team, an officer committed to development may be made project manager regardless of his or her normal official duties. The notification singles this out as a crucial choice.

Who cannot apply:

• Individual citizens cannot apply. There is no online form, no personal registration and no money paid into a personal bank account. Citizens are the end users of the infrastructure, not applicants.
• Private firms, NGOs and contractors cannot apply directly for a grant. The notification allows local communities or NGOs to be engaged for management and resources, but the proposal itself comes from the Deputy Commissioner.
• A district is not eligible by entitlement. The notification states that the scheme "will not be allotted by virtue of entitlement but would be selected through a competitive process".
• Proposals that create new posts or recurrent expenditure are effectively ruled out. The notification requires proposals to avoid these.

How to apply for the District Innovation and Challenge Fund

The application route runs entirely through the district administration. These are the steps the notification lays down:

1. The Deputy Commissioner constitutes a project team of officers available in the district and names a project manager who is committed to development.
2. The team conceptualises a project that fits one of the notified themes, filling an infrastructure gap, skill development and entrepreneurship, service delivery, health and education, welfare of marginalised sections, or eco-tourism, and checks that it is locally relevant and self-sustaining.
3. The proposal is written in the Annexure-I format, covering the project title, the Deputy Commissioner's telephone number and email, the project leader, the executing agency, the theme, objectives, a 500-word introduction to the problem, a 250-word justification, 200 words on expected outcomes, 200 words on self-sustainability beyond implementation, methodology, work plan with a Gantt chart, existing district expertise and facilities, partner agencies, and a budget split into capital and revenue heads for two years.
4. The Deputy Commissioner submits the proposal to the government within the notified date. For the first round the notification set 30 June 2017 as the last date for submission.
5. The State Level Screening Committee screens the proposals and eligible projects are sanctioned, for the first round, by 15 July 2017.
6. The district executes the project, releasing infrastructure work through transparent CVC-compliant tendering via the concerned Works Departments, and files quarterly progress reports in Annexure-II and a project completion report in Annexure-III.

How much can a district get and how is it paid?

The financial parameters in the DICF notification are precise:

The first round also carried a hard implementation limit: work "must not spill over beyond the financial year 2018-19", and proposals had to show a clear break-up of expenditure required in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

Who screens District Innovation and Challenge Fund proposals?

The notification constitutes a State Level Screening Committee with seven members:

1. Development Commissioner (Finance, Planning and Investment) — Chairman
2. Divisional Commissioner (East); Member
3. Divisional Commissioner (West); Member
4. Commissioner (PWD), Member
5. Secretary (Skill Development): Member
6. Secretary (Finance): Member
7. Secretary (Planning), Member

The spread of the committee explains the spread of the eligible themes. A proposal that is purely a civil works wish-list, with no service delivery, skilling or livelihood angle, is competing against proposals that hit several of those boxes at once.

What conditions must a DICF project satisfy?

Five conditions in the notification decide whether a project survives screening:

• Local relevance and self-sustainability. The proposal must be locally relevant and self-sustaining beyond the funding period.
• Community or NGO involvement. Possibilities of engaging local communities or NGOs for management and resources may be explored.
• No new posts, no recurring expenditure. Creating posts or recurrent expenditure is to be avoided.
• Transparent tendering. For infrastructure creation, execution must follow CVC guidelines through the concerned Works Departments as per the Allocation of Business Rules.
• Reporting discipline. Quarterly progress reports in Annexure-II, including percentage completion of each activity and a fund and expenditure statement, plus a project completion report in Annexure-III.

Why do DICF proposals fail?

Reading the notification against its own conditions, the common failure modes are:

• A budget below Rs 2 crore or above Rs 10 crore, which falls outside the permitted band.
• No credible answer to item 10 of Annexure-I, self-sustainability beyond implementation, a project that needs a fresh grant every year to survive is not what the fund is for.
• Proposals that require new posts or recurrent expenditure.
• Missing Utilisation Certificates, which stall the 50 per cent and 40 per cent tranches.
• Timelines that spill beyond the permitted financial years.
• A weak project team. The notification specifically flags that the choice of project team is crucial.

Where do you raise a DICF query or grievance?

Chief Minister's District Innovation and Challenge Fund does not publish a helpline number. The correct route for a citizen who wants to know what was sanctioned for their district, or to complain about a DICF-funded work, is:

• The office of the Deputy Commissioner of the district, who is the applicant and the accountable officer for the project.
• The Planning and Investment Division, Department of Finance, Planning and Investment, Government of Arunachal Pradesh, Civil Secretariat, Block No. 1, 4th Floor, Itanagar, which chairs the screening committee and receives the quarterly reports. Office hours are 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Copies of the notification and the guideline document are published on Arunachal Pradesh district portals under the Chief Minister's Flagship Schemes listing. No payment to any agent is required or permitted in connection with this fund.

How to check your DICF application status

There is no citizen-facing tracking portal for the District Innovation and Challenge Fund, because the "applicant" of record is the Deputy Commissioner's office, not an individual. Even so, a proposal moves through clearly defined checkpoints, and both district officials and interested residents can find out where a district's project stands at any of these stages.

• Screening stage. After the Deputy Commissioner submits the Annexure-I proposal, it sits with the State Level Screening Committee, chaired by the Development Commissioner (Finance, Planning and Investment). The project team that drafted the proposal is the first point of contact for whether the committee has met and what it decided, since the committee communicates its outcome to the submitting district rather than publishing a public dashboard.
• Sanction stage. Once a proposal clears screening, the sanction is conveyed to the district administration in writing. District officials can confirm sanction status by writing to or calling the Planning and Investment Division at the Civil Secretariat in Itanagar, quoting the project title and the financial year of submission.
• Tranche release stage. After sanction, money moves in three tranches of 10, 50 and 40 per cent, and each later tranche depends on the Utilisation Certificate for the previous one being filed. The most reliable way to check where a project stands financially is to ask the district's project manager (the officer named at the proposal stage) whether the relevant Utilisation Certificate has been submitted and cleared, since a stalled UC is the most common reason a district is still waiting on its second or third tranche.
• Execution stage. Physical progress is tracked through the quarterly progress reports filed in the Annexure-II format, which record percentage completion of each activity alongside the fund and expenditure statement. A resident wanting to know whether a specific DICF-funded work in their district is on schedule can ask the Deputy Commissioner's office for the latest quarterly report rather than expecting an online tracker.
• Completion stage. A project is formally closed only after the Annexure-III project completion report is filed. Until that report is on record with the Planning and Investment Division, the project is still officially open even if construction looks finished on the ground.

Because every one of these checkpoints is a paper submission between the district and the Finance, Planning and Investment Department rather than a public-facing system, the practical way to check status at any stage is a direct query to the Deputy Commissioner's office (for the district-level record) or the Planning and Investment Division in Itanagar (for the state-level record), rather than a website login or SMS service.