BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday reiterated the BJD’s full support for the NDA Presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu.Stating that the ‘daughter of Odisha’ has been nominated to the highest office in the country, the Chief Minister said it is indeed a matter of honour and pride for the State.
“On behalf of the people of Odisha and BJD, we need to extend our full support to her candidature in the Presidential election to be held on July 18,” the Chief Minister told party MPs at a virtual meeting of the Parliamentary Party ahead of the monsoon session on Monday. He said that in the course of his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on May 30, he had discussed several issues concerning the State’s interest and sought the support of the Centre. He asked the party MPs to take up all the pending issues with the ministries concerned so that these are sorted out in a time-bound manner.
Stating that the State is neglected in matters of railways, banking, teledensity, payment of coal royalty and clean energy cess and construction of coastal highway, Naveen said that all these critical issues concerning the interest of Odisha need to be raised in Parliament.
About the issues to be raised by the MPs during the session, the Chief Minister said that recently he had written letters to the Prime Minister on the evacuation of five lakh tonnes of surplus fortified parboiled rice from the State for the Kharif marketing season 2021-22 and on withdrawal of export duty on below 58 per cent grade iron ore and pellets.
He had demanded sanction of 1.84 lakh Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Grameen) special houses to the cyclone Fani-affected families and to migrate 5.09 lakh data from the rural housing portal to permanent waitlist (PWL) through Awaas+. Besides, he had drawn the attention of the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for exemption of the district mining fund trust from the purview of income tax from 2022-23 onwards. “All the above issues need to be pursued with the Centre,” he added.
The Chief Minister also said that the State’s demand for speeding up pending railway projects, implementation of the Swaminathan Committee recommendations on minimum support price for paddy, 33 per cent reservation for women in both Assembly and Parliament and for Odisha Legislative Council also need to be followed up and pursued vigorously. Other issues to be raised in the Parliament include the demand for Special Category State status and inclusion of ‘Ho’ language in the 8th Schedule, he added.