BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday announced that villages, panchayats and blocks will be awarded for keeping the environment clean to encourage people to work towards cleanliness.Interacting with the villagers during the ‘Ama Gaon, Ama Vikas’ programme through video conference from the State Secretariat, the Chief Minister said the villagers should adopt ‘clean village, healthy village’ as their motto. He advised villagers to stay healthy and keep surroundings clean so that they can serve their families, society and country in a better way. He discussed the issue with people of 10 districts during the programme. Health of the people is linked to the economy and development of the country, he said and added that keeping the environment clean is most important.
“To stay healthy is a right and also a responsibility. If we stay healthy, we can do something for our family, our society and the country. To be able to lead a healthy life, we need to keep our surroundings clean,” he said.The Chief Minister said a good and clean environment always encourages people to do good work. He requested all the people to use toilets and motivate others to do the same. He explained the advantages of various welfare programmes of the Government. “We should take care to keep our surroundings clean. It will help keep diseases at bay,” he said.
Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, the Chief Minister said, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” and called upon the people make cleanliness a movement. The Chief Minister also sanctioned projects worth `49.69 crore for 209 panchayats of 10 districts. He has so far covered 3717 gram panchayats of 165 blocks through the programme and sanctioned 34112 projects worth `843.65 crore.