BHUBANESWAR: The BJD on Tuesday threatened to launch a statewide agitation over the demand for coverage of all women in Subhadra Yojana as promised by the BJP in the election manifesto.
An adjournment motion on the issue was discussed in the Assembly with the BJD and Congress members alleging that nearly half of the women of the state will not get any benefit from the scheme.
Accusing the BJP of backing out from its promise to cover all women of the state under the scheme, BJD MLA Arun Sahoo said the government has excluded a large number of beneficiaries from the scheme by keeping out women of 18 to 21 years of age.
Congress MLAs Ashok Das and Sofia Firdous also demanded that the guidelines of the scheme should be relaxed to cover more women.
Replying to the discussion, deputy chief minister Pravati Parida reiterated that one crore eligible women will be covered under the scheme. Parida said that as per the 2011 census, there were 1.08 crore women in the age group of 21 to 60 years. Election Commission figures point out that the number has increased to 1.3 crore. Analysing these figures, the state government has reached a conclusion that more than one crore women will be covered, she said.