Eye on polls, Naveen Patnaik rolls out scheme for rural women self-help groups

Official sources said around 75,000 community support staffs and nearly 1,25,000 federation leaders at panchayat, block and district levels will be directly benefitting from the new scheme.

“By providing Mission Shakti federation leaders and community support staffs with affordable access to two-wheelers, the initiative will enhance their ability to carry out their responsibilities effectively, promote efficiency and expand their outreach within the community,” transport minister Tukuni Sahu said after a meeting of the state Cabinet.

Sahu said the new scheme not only eases personal mobility of women but also acknowledges the vital role played by community support staffs and federation leaders in driving social change and development for women empowerment across the state.

Launched in 2001, a year after Patnaik assumed power, the Mission Shakti initiative remained one of the top priority areas for the BJD dispensation. Around 70 lakh rural women have been organised as part of six lakh SHG groups under the initiative that carries huge political significant. These women are known to be the loyal vote bank of the BJD government.

The scheme also assumes political significance as the BJD government had created a separate Mission Shakti department in March 2021. Patnaik, who is also the president of BJD, had also fielded an SHG leader, 70-year-old Pramila Bisoyi, from the Aska parliament seat, who won the election with a margin of over 2 lakh votes.

Nurturing women SHGs has been a long-standing tradition of the BJD government. Hours after Patnaik took charge as the chief minister for the fifth time, the government approved to provide services and gave its not to procurements worth Rs 1,000 crore from 10 departments to the SHGs.

The services include supply of pre-school uniforms in Anganwadi centres, owning fair price shops, taking up paddy procurement, providing mid-day meals in schools, electricity meter reading and billing, raising nurseries, leasing village tanks for fish farming and supplies diets to hospitals.

Two years later in July 2021, the government decided to provide business by all government department worth Rs 5,000 crore in five years to the women SHGs to enhance their economic condition.

Patnaik used to meet Mission Shakti members coming from various districts to his residence to discuss their issues and problems almost every week. Patnaik’s trusted bureaucrat and his private secretary VK Pandian has been visiting various districts, meeting the SHGs and having launch at the Mission Shakti cafes that offer traditional Odia food and snacks.

As Odisha’s international air connectivity services kicked off from Bhubaneswar to Dubai in May this year, a group of Mission Shakti members were among the fliers in the maiden flight facilitated by the state government. Another group had also flown to Singapore in June when flight services were started. A special session is also being dedicated to the Mission Shakti initiative when the state holds its biennial Make-in-Odisha conclave to showcase the state’s business ecosystem.

Meanwhile, continuing its welfare schemes for the people in different sectors, the Cabinet also approved a budgetary support of Rs 1,001 crore to expand comprehensive cancer services.

According to the plan, 11 cancer care units with 50 to 100-beds with other facilities like operation theatre, ICU, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and palliative care units will be built up within a period of two years at different hospitals across the state.

“Henceforth, patients need not travel outside the state seeking advanced cancer care. Facilities like radiotherapy, brachytherapy, histopathology and onco-surgery will be strengthened,” said Odisha chief secretary PK Jena.

This will definitely reduce the out-of-pocket expenditure of the people suffering from cancer and their family members, said the chief secretary.