 "Naveen govt braces up to fulfill poll promises")
The party that romped home in the polls, bagging an overwhelming 117 of the 147 assembly seats and 20 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats, has set in motion the task to implement the schemes announced in its election manifesto.
The state government has decided to vet progress of implementation of the schemes every quarter. The monitoring of implementation of poll promises will be done by the department of planning & coordination.
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In a letter to secretaries of all departments, G B Reddy, special secretary (planning & coordination) has sought information on action initiated on the issues listed in the election manifesto.
Ahead of the polls in April this year, the BJD had unveiled a ‘please all’ manifesto, touching on everything from farmers' welfare to shelter security, women empowerment to minority welfare, education to health security and employment to social security.
Reiterating its commitment to farmers’ welfare, the party has announced slashing of interest rate on agricultural loans to one per cent in the next one year.
Other measures promised for the farm sector were creation of additional irrigation potential of more than one million hectares in the next five years, making available high quality seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and technical inputs at the panchayat level, establishment of subsidy based cold storage facilities in all blocks on PPP (public private partnership) mode, creation of warehouse facilities in all panchayats and setting up of the second agriculture university in KBK (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) region.
In the industrial sector, the party had announced that the government will make mandatory for the industries to provide shares to gram panchayats (GPs) and people from whom land is acquired and make them shareholders in the project to ensure continuous income for the GPs and the people.
The manifesto promised facilitation of industrial growth in every district of the state with special focus on value addition and downstream industries so as to promote employment opportunities for the youth of the state and also to ensure adequate revenue generation for the state. Under ‘Chief Minister Employment Generation Scheme’, it was envisaged to offer skill upgradation training to at least 150 youth from each gram panchayat.
A ‘Chief Minister Sadak Yojana’ was also announced in the manifesto to provide connectivity to all villages which cannot be covered under any other existing scheme. The manifesto talked of creation of ‘Odisha Youth Innovation Fund’ to assist young entrepreneurs in incubating new business ideas. It also emphasised on scaling up recruitment in government in all fields and hiring of local talent in all industries coming up in the state.