Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik clears NUA Odisha scheme ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly polls

By Sukant Mohanty

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 11: Apparently with an eye on youth votes, the Odisha cabinet headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday gave its approval to a new scheme called Nutana Unnata Abhilasha (NUA) Odisha – with an outlay of Rs 385 crore.

The scheme which abbreviates into NUA Odisha (New Odisha), aims at skilling one lakh  youths every year in the state during the next three years.

The scheme will be implemented in all the 30 districts and skilling, re-skilling and up-skilling opportunities will be provided through skilling institutions of the skill development and technical education (SD & TE) department (ITI and Polytechnic), government skilling institutions, educational institutions and clusters (MSME, agriculture and craft).

A year before the 2019 Lok Sabha and Odisha Legislative Assembly elections, the state government had on March 14, 2028 launched Biju Yuva Vahini programme, to encourage volunteerism and active participation of the youth in various social action projects and community engagement activities. The state government had then earmarked an allocation of Rs 450.49 crore for a period of three years. However, after the first year, there was no reflection of budget allocations for the scheme in 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years. This fact was revealed by state for sports and youth affairs minister Tusharkanti Behera while replying to an unstarred question by Bhawani Shankar Bhoi (BJP) in the Assembly on March 12, 2021.

According to political analysts, the ruling BJD will hard-sell the new NUA Odisha scheme to woo the youth voters.

Similarly, the Cabinet also approved the proposal to amend Odisha Mobile Towers and Telegraphic Line, OFC and related Telecom Infrastructure Policy 2017. The amendment aims to modify the existing state policy and to facilitate faster and easier deployment of telecom infrastructure to enable speedy 5G rollout, mitigate the operation difficulties and improve the quality of service across the state.

The Cabinet also gave its nod to the scheme to open ‘CSP Plus’ banking outlet in accordance with six public sector banks of India in 4,373 unbanked gram panchayats of the state with a budgetary support of around Rs 500 crore.

Going to mitigate the drinking water problem, the Cabinet approved the lowest tender of M/S The Indian Hume Pipe Co. Ltd, Mumbai (amounting to Rs 639,16,28,812.00) for the execution of four numbers of Mega Piped Water Supply Projects. Once completed, around 4,60,612 people of 498 villages under 92 GPs of seven blocks of Puri district will get safe drinking water.

At the same time, the Cabinet also approved the proposal of the Revenue and DM Department to lease out government land totaling 48 acres 842 decimals in Padanpur, Baratola, Bhimpur and Belapada mouzas under Jatni tehsil of Khordha district in favour of National Institute of Science Education & Research (NISER) on free of all charges basis for setting up Cancer Hospital & Education Centre by Tata Memorial Centre (TMC).

In toto, the Cabinet approved 19 key proposals during the state cabinet meeting headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.  In the meeting, the Cabinet gave its nod to Nutana Unnata Abhilasha (NUA) Odisha scheme with an outlay of Rs 385 crore to skill 1,00,000 youths every year in the state during the next three years.