CYSD seeks special housing schemes for Odisha disaster prone areas

Demand stems from disaster that struck state in form of cyclonic storm Phailin in October last year

The Odisha Budget and Accountability Centre (OBAC), a constituent of thecity-based Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD) has soughtspecial housing schemes for people staying in kutcha houses incyclone and flood affected areas.

The demand stems from the disaster that struck the state in the form of cyclonic storm Phailin in October last year. Massive evacuation ofpeople living in makeshift houses was undertaken before the stormstruck the coast.

"Thereis need for social housing movement in the state in the disasterprone areas", said Jagadananda.

"Priorityshould be given to the Scheduled Castes and Schedule Tribes in theensuing polls of the state which has substantive tribal population.There is requirement of a legislation for effective implementation ofthe Scheduled Castes sub plan for Scheduled castes and Tribal Subplan for tribals. Budgeting must be done after formulation of Rightto Education Act", he added.

Tostreamline disaster management, CYSD has also demanded constructionof disaster resilient schools and anganwadi buildings in the stateand immediate functioning of doppler radar stations.

CYSDreleased a report- 'Citizens' Charter of Demand', based on the groundrealities of the social sector in the state.

Thereport delineates the key demands in areas of development likeeducation, health, scheduled caste & scheduled tribe, women,early childhood care & development, agriculture, disastermanagement and employment. The report has made a collective analysisof election manifestos of different political parties in the 2009elections. It highlights the fulfilled and unfulfilled commitments ofthe government.

Inthe arena of health, the report has pressed the need for availabilityof medical professionals as per IPHS (Indian Public Health Standards)norms, community health monitoring system, scaling up of genericmedicine centres and focused policy on preventive measures.

Similarlyfor women development, the demands centre on establishment of fasttrack courts to deal with cases of women atrocities, reservation of50 per cent of seats at levels of decision making starting from grampanchayat to Lok Sabha, setting up of a gender budget cell andformation of legal help group to give social justice to the exploitedwomen.

Theissues that need attention in agriculture sector are non-diversion ofland meant for agriculture for other purposes, fixation of minimumsupport price (MSP) for all agriculture products, recognition ofwomen as farmers, incentives to farmers in the form of easy loans andensuring compensation against crop damage to name a few.