Nawarangpur MP, Balabhadra Majhi meet Niti Aayog, Vice- Chairman Rajiv Kumar and requested him to include the district in the…
Nawarangpur MP, Balabhadra Majhi meets Niti Aayog, Vice- Chairman Rajiv Kumar and requests him to include the district in the Aspirational Districts Programme list.
Nawarangpur MP, Balabhadra Majhi meet Niti Aayog, Vice- Chairman Rajiv Kumar and requested him to include the district in the list of Aspirational Districts Programme.
Majhi mentioned that Nawarangpur is one of the most backward districts with 55 per cent tribal population, 15 per cent SC and 20 per cent OBC.
“There is hardly 40 km of railway line in the district and barely 25 per cent of the land is irrigated,” he said.
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Malnutrition and lack of road connectivity were other parameters making it eligible to be covered under the Aspirational district programme for focussed attention.
“In terms of district-wise ranking in Odisha, Nuapada is the most backward with a rank of 589 followed by Malkangiri (588), Nabarangpur (575), Boudh (574), Mayurbhanj (564), Gajapati (552), Kandhamal (551) and Kalahandi (548). Taking the Human Development Index (HDI) into consideration, Boudh is the most poverty-stricken district of Odisha with 0.12 followed by Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj and Kalahandi with 0.15 HDI each,” he said.
It may be noted here that NITI Aayog had listed eight districts of Odisha under the programme but Odisha government had boycotted on grounds of ‘arbitrary’ decision taken by the central government and the imposition of central officers as ‘prabhari’ officers to each of the eight districts.
NITI Aayog had requested Odisha government to reconsider its stand and join the programme last month. Odisha government, on its part, had put certain conditions like change in the list of districts and undermining the role of the prabhari officer etc.
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