Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi Friday announced the launch of the ‘Lakhpati Didi Sahayika Yojana’ for the welfare of women working as community support staff at the grassroots level.
“I am introducing a new scheme called the ‘Lakhpati Didi Sahayika Yojana.’ Under this initiative, the government will temporarily bear the remuneration cost of the community support staff and will provide grants to GPLFs (Gram Panchayat Level Federation),” he told the Assembly.
He said more than 62,000 community support staff will benefit from this decision, with their remuneration starting from April 2024. “Our government is committed to making women self-reliant and building a prosperous Odisha. Women’s community support staff play a crucial role in this vision. To address their challenges, we have taken an important step by launching this scheme,” he added.
Claiming that the community support staff had not been paid for the past 10 months, Majhi blamed the previous government’s lack of willpower. “The GPLFs could not become self-sufficient, and as a result, the community support staff were not paid on time,” he said.
Majhi said the state government is also implementing the ‘Lakhpati Didi Yojana’ for the economic growth of women in self-help groups (SHGs). Under this scheme, the goal is to help as many women members of self-help groups as possible earn an income of Rs 1 lakh annually.
“The state government has set a target of creating 25 lakh ‘Lakhpati Didis’ by 2027,” the CM said.
Community support staff (CSS) were appointed by the GPLFs to strengthen and empower SHGs, cluster-level federations and gram panchayat federations.
The community support staff includes positions such as community resource person for community mobilization (CRP-CM), master bookkeeper, bank mitra and prani mitra. Since 2012, a total of 62,341 community support staff have been appointed in the state by the Odisha Livelihood Mission under the National Rural Livelihood Mission.
PTI
