ROURKELA: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, on his second visit to Sundargarh district in a fortnight, inaugurated 29 projects and laid foundations for 62 projects worth hundreds of crores from three separate venues.
Arriving at Rourkela aerodrome, Naveen drove to Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) headquarters campus here to unveil the statue of Biju Patnaik and a ladies’ hostel. He also laid foundation for the seven-storey convergence building of BPUT. Later, he addressed the 16th triennial conference of Odisha State Non-gazetted Revenue Field Officers’ Association at Telephone Bhawan Ground. Minister of State for Employment and Technical Education and Training Sanjay Dasburma, Raghunathpali MLA Subrat Tarai and Sundargarh Collector Bhupendra Singh Poonia were present.
The Chief Minister, in his address, lauded the efforts of the revenue officers in land-related issues, natural calamities and crops assessments. He said 85,000 land records have been distributed in the current fiscal and hoped to achieve the target of providing homestead land to all landless persons. Naveen said with dedicated efforts of field officers in delivery of public services, more than five lakh certificates were given to public in the current year. Steps have been taken for digitisation of land records, he added.
Naveen then attended a function organised at Teterkela in Birmitrapur Assembly constituency. He symbolically inaugurated two projects each for Birmitrapur and Rajgangpur constituencies, laid foundations for 22 projects and distributed benefits to beneficiaries. Addressing a public meeting, Naveen said the Make-In-Odisha conclave ended with promise to bring fresh investment of `2.03 lakh crore in 10 sectors and create about 1.40 lakh job opportunities.
Claiming that his Government is committed to the betterment of poor, tribal and agriculture communities, Naveen said, “Welfare of ST/SCs, women empowerment, education, health and infrastructure development are top priorities of my Government.”
While stating that the provision of `500 crore loan for Self-help Groups (SHGs) would be doubled, he listed out various schemes which were launched for the benefit of farm sector and workers of unorganised sectors.
Minister of State for Sports and Youth Services Sudam Marndi and Chairman of Rourkela Development Authority (RDA) Sarada Prasad Nayak were present. Later, Naveen reached Bimlagarh of Bonai constituency where he inaugurated four projects, laid foundations for 24 projects and addressed a public meeting in the presence of senior BJD leaders Subash Singh and Prashant Nanda.
At Mangaspur in Sundargarh constituency, the Chief Minister inaugurated 10 projects, laid foundations for 15 projects and addressed a public meeting in the presence of MLAs Mangla Kishan and Pravat Biswal.