Finance
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik opened the two-day Collectors’ Conference at the Lok Seva Bhawan in the capital city on Tuesday.
Inaugurating the conference virtually, the Chief Minister welcomed the Collectors and expressed hope that the interaction would reset and re-energize the government’s efforts to maximize the visibility of its transformative initiatives.
“I would like to see all our development projects implemented in the shortest possible time and our welfare initiatives reach all the legitimate beneficiaries. There should be a competition among districts for the realisation of goals, and set benchmarks for others,” said the Chief Minister.
Naveen said that Odisha has been at the forefront of many states for its transformative initiatives, including sports, healthcare, school transformation, women’s empowerment, skill development, crop production, and Covid management. “The 5T Initiative and ‘Mo Sarkar’ initiatives have brought about transformative governance and have enhanced our people’s outreach programmes. At the district level, Collectors and district administrations are required to reach out to more and more people, find out issues of concern, and use technology to sort out them in a faster and simple, hassle-free manner,” he added.
Talking about the achievements of his government, the Chief Minister said, “As you know, we are now a food surplus state contributing to the national public distribution system. I would like to highlight that the agriculture and allied sectors provide maximum employment to people in rural areas,” adding, “We should focus more on farm mechanization, 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 revitalize the rural economy. We need to continue to excel in this sector.”
According to the Chief Minister, start-ups are critical to the state’s economic development. The government has done a lot in this regard. The O-hub is one of the major incubation centers for start-ups. We want Odisha to be one of the top three start-up destinations in the country.
He emphasised, “Women empowerment is at the core of all our initiatives. 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. “
“We have a target to provide Rs 50,000 crore to our Mission Shakti Groups in the next five years. Collectors are required to provide all possible support to Mission Shakti Groups in the realisation of this objective,” the Chief Minister pointed out.
Spelling out his government’s priorities, the Chief Minister said, “Other flagship programmes like Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, school transformation, tourism promotion and sports also require your special attention.”
Concluding his address, he said, “Let’s work together towards a new Odisha an empowered Odisha.”
The Chief Minister praised the Koraput district administration’s creation and implementation of the Mission Shakti Industrial Park, saying that it will be adopted by the entire state.
Source:OCN
