The Centre has approved a Rs 240-crore action plan of the State Government under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM).
Official sources said the district administrations have been asked to submit their action plans under the NRLM to the State Government.
Guidelines for preparation of action plan have already been issued to them. The State Government has in the meantime constituted Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM) for implementation of NRLM.
While initiation and sensitisation workshops have been organised in all the 30 districts for implementation of the NRLM, training has been completed in all the districts barring Jagatsinghpur. Training programme will be organised in Jagatsinghpur on July 28.
Ten districts __ Deogarh, Rayagada, Malkangiri, Koraput, Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Ganjam, Gajapati, Kandhamal and Mayurbhanj __ have been identified as focus districts for NRLM activities.
A two-day State level workshop on NRLM and MGNREGS was inaugurated by Chief Secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik here on Friday. Patnaik said NRLM should be looked as a tool for poverty reduction in rural areas.
He advised collectors and project directors of District Rural Development Agencies (PD, DRDA) to identify cluster of activities, in which people of a district have core competence, and plan NRLM activities to promote sustainable livelihood around that competence.
Each district has its own area of competence like horticulture, floriculture, handloom, handicraft, mining activities, transportation, forest produce collection, agriculture and tourism. Collectors and PDs can achieve excellence in identifying theses core areas and developing them through NRLM support, he said. Patnaik also emphasized on strengthening of implementing machinery at panchayat and village level.
Secretary in the Panchayati Raj Department Pradeep Kumar Jena said NRLM has been designed on the basis of a number of experiments done in the field of poverty alleviation. Jena said the State has about 60 lakh registered job-card holders.
K Raju, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, said rural transformation is turning to a reality with various enabling provisions of NRLM and MGNREGS.