Bhubaneswar, May 10 (FN Representative) The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha announced on Friday free electricity to consumers using 100 units in a month and a 50 percent subsidy for using 100 to 150 units in the state.Releasing the party’s election manifesto, christened the “Peoples Manifesto,” on Thursday night, BJD Supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said the decision will help almost all the families in the rural areas, besides the lower middle and middle-class families in the urban areas. Patnaik said it would benefit about 90 percent of the families in the state. He said the manifesto, which will be recorded in the history of Odisha, will benefit all sections of people and will make Odisha the number one state in the country by 2034. He announced a separate budget of Rs 1 lakh crore for the youths of the state for the next 10 years, which Patnaik claimed was the first of its kind, providing a separate identity for the youths of the state. The BJD supremo also announced that two lakh government jobs will be provided in the state in the next five years, and the student scholarships for girls and boys will be enhanced to Rs 14,000 and 12,000 per annum, respectively. All the students studying degree and diploma courses will be eligible for the scholarship, he said, adding that the loan for self-employment will be increased to Rs 2 lakh from the existing Rs 1 lakh.Patnaik claimed that Odisha will be the IT capital of Eastern India, and the economic system of Odisha will be strengthened so that Odisha will become one of the top three emerging economies in the country.
The BJD manifesto also announced sops for the self-help group of women, who are the main support base of the party. It said Odisha will be the first state in the country to provide interest-free loans to women up to Rs 15 lakh. The Self Help Group, the manifesto said, will have a financial linkage of Rs 1.5 lakh crores for the next five years, after which they will receive a returned interest of Rs 2500 crore. This will help the SHGs become small and medium entrepreneurs, Patnaik said, and he announced that the SHGs will be provided with Rs 20,000 crore in government business in the next 10 years. The manifesto said individual women entrepreneurs will be provided with a subsidy loan of up to Rs 10 lakh, for which a corpus fund of Rs 100 crore will be created. Patnaik said Mission Shakti women will get pensions, while all grassroots workers, Anganwadi workers, and Asha workers will be covered under the Biju Swasthya Kalian Yojana( BKSY).The BKSY Nabin card will cover all sections of the population in the state, including government employees, contractual labourers, and middle-class people, phase-wise.The government will also provide Rs 1,000 crore in the next 10 years to help SC, ST, and OBC youths establish entrepreneurship, and loans up to Rs 10 lakh will be provided to them interest-free.
The other salient features of the manifesto are that all eligible persons in rural areas will be provided pucca houses, for which about 10 lakh houses will be constructed in the next 5 years.The government will create a Rs 100 crore fund for the promotion and research of Odia. A centre of excellence will be set up at Sambalpur University for the promotion of Western Odisha languages.Free electricity will be provided for agriculture-related activities, which will help increase production and lessen the burden on farmers.The Kalia scheme for farmers will be expanded, and loans up to Rs1.5 lakh for agriculture will be interest-free. The fishermen will be provided Rs 15,000 per year to overcome the uncertainty in weather conditions.The Chief Minister said the government will encourage urbanisation in the state so that the population in urban areas will double during the next ten years. He said four mega-clusters will be established in the state to ensure all-round development, while 20 new towns will be developed in the near future.