PARADIP: The State Government will spend `one lakh crore towards development of Paradip Port City with focus on providing employment to unemployed youths, said Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Addressing a public meeting at Paradip on the last day of electioneering for the ULB polls on Sunday, Naveen said poverty in the State has come down after the BJD came to power. Remembering late Biju Patnaik, Naveen said the BJD Government has been focusing on economic growth.
The Chief Minister said the Government has planned several projects for rehabilitation of slum dwellers in Paradip and all the basic amenities like road, water and electricity supply would be provided to every Ward of the Paradip Municipality.
He appealed to people to vote for the BJD candidates in the election to Paradip Municipality.
Speaking on the occasion, Excise and Cooperation Minister and local legislator Damodar Rout said the BJD would not just win all the 19 Wards in the Municipality, but also 126 Assembly seats in 2019 Assembly election because of the popularity of Naveen Patnaik and his clean image.
Election will be held to 19 Wards of Paradip Municipality on Tuesday. Besides BJD, BJP and Congress, which have fielded candidates in all the Wards, a new party Paradip Bikash Parishad - floated by local trade union leader Santosh Pattnaik - has fielded 14 candidates. There are five Independents in the fray. A total of 93 candidates had filed nominations for the election, but 15 of them withdrew their papers and one’s nomination was rejected during scrutiny.
This year, the main plank of BJD in electioneering was development work undertaken by the State Government including the newly launched Aahar scheme. The BJD left nothing to chance and engaged more than three dozen Ministers, MPs, MLAs and party leaders for campaigning for the polls.