Reach out to people, sort out their issues in faster manner: Odisha CM

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday asked collectors to reach out to more and more people, find out their issues of concern, and use technology to sort them out in a faster, simple and hassle-free manner.

While inaugurating a two-day conference of senior officers including collectors here, Patnaik said, “I would like to see all our development projects are implemented in the shortest possible time and our welfare initiatives reach all the legitimate beneficiaries.”

There should be a competition among districts for realisation of goals, and set benchmarks for others, he added. Stating that Odisha has been at the forefront of many states for its transformative initiatives, Patnaik said, sports, healthcare, school transformation, women empowerment, skill development, crop production, Covid management are some of the sectors that attract special mention.

The Chief Minister said the 5T initiative and Mo Sarkar, – these twin initiatives of his government have brought about transformative governance and have enhanced our people’s outreach programmes.

Odisha is now a food surplus state contributing to the national public distribution system and the agriculture & allied sectors provide maximum employment to people in rural areas, he pointed out.

The Chief Minister asked the officers to focus more on farm mechanisation, crop diversification, horticulture and floriculture, dairy development and fisheries. “Our Millet Mission has now been taken up nationally to improve nutrition. This sector has the potential to revitalise the rural economy. We need to continue to excel in this sector,” he added.

“Start-ups play a vital role in the economic development of the state and a lot in this regard has been done by the government. The O-hub is in operation as one of the big incubation centres for the startups,” he said, adding, “We are trying to make Odisha as one of the top three startup destinations in the country.”

Speaking on women empowerment, Patnaik said, “We intend to transform our Mission Shakti groups into small and medium enterprises. We are providing interest-free loans up to Rs 5 lakh so that they can convert their units to flourishing units.”

Besides, the state government has set a target to provide Rs 50,000 crore to the Mission Shakti groups in next five years. So, he directed the collectors to provide all possible support to Mission Shakti groups in realisation of this objective.

Appreciating the Mission Shakti industrial park conceived and implemented by the Koraput administration, the Chief Minister said that this initiative will be adopted by the entire state.

The collectors were further directed to give special attention to other flagship programmes of the Odisha government like Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, school transformation, tourism promotion, sports, etc.

Hoping that this interaction will reset and re-invigorate the state’s efforts to maximise visibility to transformative initiatives, Patnaik told the collectors, “Let’s work together towards a new Odisha, an empowered Odisha.”