BHUBANESWAR: BJD legislator from Khandapara Soumya Ranjan Patnaik created a flutter in political circles again by questioning the efficacy of 5T initiative and Mo Sarkar in the Assembly on Thursday. Patnaik raised the issue during question hour while raising supplementaries on one of his queries.
Alleging that the 5T initiative is undermining the smooth functioning of the departments, the BJD MLA said that it is creating separatism among the departments and hampering their smooth functioning. He expressed concern over the fact that it will affect the transparency and efficiency of departments in the future.
He also referred to the use of ‘Mo’ (my) liberally before government schemes and programmes. But it needs to be ascertained whether this has done any good and raised the efficiency level in implementation of the schemes, he said and added that ministers are also not able to throw any light on this.
Quoting from the Water Resources Minister Raghunandan Das’ reply to his question, Patnaik said there is mention in it about water literacy, water management, Youth4Water, and Mo Nadi Abhiyan. He asked whether there is involvement of the government machinery in implementing these schemes, which sounds good, in a proper manner.
Lambasting the State government for not having a water policy to protect the interest of the State, he expressed concern over the priority given to providing water to industries first by ignoring drinking water requirements of common people.
In his reply to the question, the Minister said that though programmes like Mo Nadi and Youth4Water have been announced by the government, no budget provision has been made for their implementation.This is not for the first time that Patnaik has targeted the State government on different issues.
Last year, in an editorial written in a vernacular daily edited by him, Patnaik had questioned the Covid management of the State government and alleged that it had deliberately under-reported Covid deaths in the State.