Bhubaneswar: BJP legislators from western Odisha have asked the state government to increase the spending limit of each MLA from the Western Odisha Development Council (WODC) fund to Rs 5 crore per year. Among the BJP legislators seeking the raise are Jayanarayan Mishra, Bhabani Shankar Bhoi, Kusum Tete, Mukesh Mahaling, Nauri Nayak, Subash Chandra Panigrahi and Shankar Oram. They have written a letter jointly to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on the issue.
Seeking the CM’s attention to the funding from the WODC, the legislators said they were allowed to submit project proposals amounting to Rs 1 crore each per year, when the budget of WODC was Rs 100 crore per annum. The government has now doubled the annual budgetary allocation of WODC to Rs 200 crore.
“It is therefore requested that each MLA of WODC area may be allowed to submit project proposals of Rs 5 crore per year so that we can give sustainable proposals for the benefit of people of our area (WODC),” the lawmakers said in the letter.
The WODC was given an initial funding of Rs 3 crore in the year 1999-2000, which remained at Rs100 crore till 2020-21. The amount was raised to Rs 200 crore in the financial year 2021-22.
