Naveen sounds PM for aid

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Bhubaneswar, Oct. 3: Two days after announcing two state-funded schemes for backward Kandhamal and Gajapati districts, chief minister Naveen Patnaik today requested the Prime Minister to formulate special plans for developing the two districts.

Naveen had announced the schemes — Biju Kandhamal Yojana and Biju Gajapati Yojana — during his visit to riot-hit Kandhamal district on Thursday.

Today, he wrote a letter to Manmohan Singh, urging him to formulate special schemes on the lines of the one being implemented in the KBK region, one of the most backward regions of the country.

As per estimates of the 55th round of NSS survey conducted in 1999-2000, the incidence of rural poverty was 87.14 per cent. The region also suffers from acute economic, social and gender disparities, and very adverse socio-economic and human development indicators.

A revised long-term action plan has been effective in the KBK region since 2002-03. The project was prepared in a sub-plan mode to address the peculiar socio-economic problems of this chronically poor region, which is also geographically contiguous.

The project envisages an integrated approach for speeding up socio-economic development of this region by synergising effectively the various developmental activities and schemes under implementation both in central as well as state sectors. The plan includes a special annual central assistance of Rs 130 crore.

In his letter to the Prime Minister, Naveen said he had been repeatedly drawing the attention of the Centre to include backward Kandhamal and Gajapati districts, located close to the KBK region, in the special scheme. “However, it’s unfortunate that the Centre has not yet accepted the state’s rightful demand,” he lamented.

Naveen informed the Prime Minister that his government had recently decided to execute two special schemes for backward Kandhamal and Gajapati districts out of its own resources. About Rs 1.5 crore has been provided for each block for basic facilities like electricity, road connectivity and drinking water.

Political observers believe that the recent move of the state government was to put pressure on the Centre to include the two districts in the KBK scheme.

In 2007, in a bid to snub the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre for its “apathy” to backward regions of Orissa, Naveen had launched Rs 600-crore Biju KBK Yojana spread over a period of five years, alleging that the inflow of central funds was too meagre to develop the region.