Bhubaneswar: Union Petroleum and Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has urged the Ministry of Minority Affairs to extend the Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram (PMJVK) to state capitals and metropolitan cities instead of confining it to identified minority concentration areas.
It is necessary so that infrastructure support in areas such as education, health, skill development and empowerment of women can be made available in the cities as well, Pradhan said in a letter to Union Minority Affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a copy of which was released to the media, Wednesday.
At present, the Ministry of Minority Affairs (MoMA) sanctions projects under the PMJVK only in identified Minority Concentration Areas where there is more than 25 per cent minority population, and is relatively backward in socio-economic and basic amenities parameters as compared to the national average.
“I would implore you to consider allowing projects like girls hostels, residential schools, ITIs, skill centres, in locations where students/ people migrate to in search of better facilities…,” Pradhan said.
The minister said this while urging the Centre for setting up a girls’ hostel for students of minority communities in Bhubaneswar.
He also requested Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to immediately send a detailed proposal to the Centre for setting up a medical college in Bhadrak district as the area lacks tertiary medical facility.
The state should ask the Centre to set up the medical college in Bhadrak district under the PMJVK scheme, Pradhan said in a letter to the Chief Minister.
Having a medical college in the district would be extremely helpful in providing requisite medical facilities to the people in and around Bhadrak,” he said.
The PMJVK provides for creation of community assets, and health is one of the priority sectors under the scheme, Pradhan said.
The Central government bears 60 per cent of the capital cost of the project while recurring expenditure, including manpower, will be provided by the states, he said.
