Majhi authorities’s one yr marked by controversies and communal rigidity
Ever since coming to energy in June final yr Majhi authorities has renamed a number of schemes, particularly those that honour and commemorate Biju Patnaik.
Whereas Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana has been rechristened as Antyodaya Gruha Yojana, the Biju Setu Yojana is now known as Setu Bandhan Yojana. The BJD authorities’s flagship well being scheme Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY) has now been changed with Centre’s Ayushman Bharat Yojana which Naveen authorities had saved resisting until the tip of its tenure.
“It’s clear that the brand new authorities needs to take away each hint of Biju Patnaik from public reminiscence however what they fail to grasp that Biju Babu, together with his huge contribution to the making of recent Odisha, is now a part of the Odia psyche,” stated political analyst Shashi Kant Mishra.
The Majhi authorities has been taking credit score for organising the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas (PBD) in Odisha for the primary time in January this yr. The occasion was adopted by Utkarsh Odisha, a rebranded biennial funding conclave that was launched by Naveen Patnaik authorities in 2016 below the identify Make in Odisha.
The conclave, in response to claims made by Majhi, attracted funding proposals value a staggering Rs 16.73 lakh crore throughout sectors, setting a brand new benchmark for the state.
Nonetheless, former chief minister and current chief of opposition Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday sought to debunk the parable of financial progress being created by Majhi and alleged that state’s mortgage burden had elevated below the one yr rule of BJP.
“When the BJD authorities took over in 2000, the state’s mortgage burden was Rs 18,000 crore. Nonetheless, by 2024, it managed a surplus of Rs 45,000 crore within the treasury,” he stated and criticised the Majhi authorities’s mishandling of the financial system.
He additionally lambasted the BJP for undermining his authorities’s efforts to empower ladies by means of Mission Shakti, a full-fledged authorities division that was creating financial alternatives for girls by organising them into self-help teams.
With ladies SHGs below Mission Shakti reaching a membership determine of over 70 lakh the BJP suspected it of performing as a significant vote-bank for rival BJD and commenced working it down, leaving SHG members annoyed.
The BJP authorities as a substitute launched the Subhadra scheme below which ladies will obtain a complete quantity of Rs 50,000 over 5 years. However the scheme doesn’t maintain the promise of constructing ladies financially unbiased which was the aim of Mission Shakti.
“Naveen authorities’s scheme had a number of benefits for girls, an important one being that it introduced a number of departments collectively to create enterprise alternatives for low-income group ladies like us,” stated Prashanti Parida who received her first job, because of Mission Shakti.
