Original Trackback URL
Kandhamal launch for Naveen schemes

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 1: In an apparent bid to snub the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre, chief minister Naveen Patnaik today announced two state-funded schemes for Kandhamal and Gajapati.

Naveen announced Biju Kandhamal Yojana and Biju Gajapati Yojana during today’s Kandhamal visit, which also saw him flag off a slew of schemes, facilities and programmes for the state.

Earlier, Naveen had urged the Centre to include Kandhamal and Gajapati in its special programme for the backward KBK region (Koraput-Bolangir-Kalahandi). As his plea went “unheeded”, Naveen launched the two programmes out of the state’s resources, to be effective from the current fiscal.

Under the programme, Rs 1.5 crore will be released to each block in the two districts for the construction of roads, supply of drinking water and power. Naveen said he would soon write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh informing him of the schemes.

In 2007, the Naveen government had launched a state-funded, Rs 600-crore Biju KBK Yojana, alleging that the inflow of central fund was “too little” to develop the region.

Under the KBK yojana, Rs 1.5 crore would have been spent on each block of eight districts of the region.

During his visit to Dutipada Tribal Girls’ School in Kandhamal today, Naveen also launched the School Health Programme, an ambitious scheme that would cover 58-lakh students in 60,000 schools across the state.

Rs 12.29 crore has been sanctioned for implementing the scheme this fiscal, said the chief minister. “It will take health care to the doorsteps of each and every school in the state,” he said.

Students of Classes I to X, belonging to both residential and non-residential schools, will benefit under the scheme, which will screen students twice a year and treat minor ailments, while referring critical and chronic cases to hospitals.

On an inauguration spree, Naveen also launched Project Arogya, a special package to provide health services to remote areas in Phulbani district headquarters. He cut the ribbon for a special intensive care unit (ICU) for infants and inaugurated a resthouse for accredited social health activists and distributed bicycles among them.

The same day, he launched a single-window system for integrated services such as on-the-spot payment under Janani Suraksha Yojana, issue of birth certificates, distribution of mother and baby kits, immunisation, family planning counselling, Janani Express Helpline for pregnant mothers and Asha grievance cell.

Also on his agenda, a mega-nursery at Mula Gudari, for which the chief minister laid the foundation stone, as he did for a hostel at Phulbani sports complex and for a government teachers’ training college at Sartaguda village.

Naveen also distributed land pattas under Forest Rights Act, old age and widow pensions under Madhubabu Pension Yojana and loans to women self-help groups.