Bhubaneswar, Feb 14: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has asked the district collectors and district administrations to focus more on agriculture and allied sectors to provide maximum employment to people in rural areas.
Addressing the two day -Collectors conference here on Tuesday, Patnaik said more focus should
be given on farm mechanisation, crop diversification, horticulture, dairy development and fisheries.
Patnaik said, “Our ‘Millet Mission’ which has the potential to revitalize the rural economy has now been taken up nationally to improve nutrition and we need to continue to excel in this sector.
“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,” the Chief minister said and called for a competition among districts for realization of goals, and set benchmarks for others.
The Chief Minister said Odisha has become a food surplus state and contributing to the national public distribution system.
Patnaik said start ups play a vital role in the economic development of the state. 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 start ups.
The state government, he said, is also trying to make Odisha as one of the top three start up destinations in the country.
The state government,the Chief minister said intends to transform the Mission Shakti Groups into small and medium enterprises for the empowerment of women.
The state government is providing interest free loans up to Rs 5 lakh to Mission Shakti groups to help them to convert their units into flourishing units.
Stating that the government has a target to provide Rs 50,000 crore to Mission Shakti groups in next five years he asked the Collectors to provide all possible support to the SHGs in realization of this objective.
Other Flagship programmes of the state government like Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, School Transformation, Tourism Promotion, Sports also require your special attention, he told the collectors.
All the developmental projects, he said, should be implemented in the shortest possible time and the welfare initiatives reach all the beneficiaries.
Odisha, Patnaik said has been at the forefront of many states for its transformative initiatives, which included sports, health care, school transformation, women empowerment, skill development, crop production and covid management.
The Chief Minister hoped that this interaction will reset and re-invigorate our efforts to maximize visibility to our transformative initiatives.
He urged the district collectors to reach out to more and more people, find out issues of concern, and use technology to sort them out in a faster and simple, hassle free manner.
