Puri: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Thursday launched the Jaga Mission to provide land deeds to the urban landless in eight districts at a special programme here.
Addressing the meeting, Patnaik said that he envisioned the idea of Jaga Mission after seeing the plight of landless slum dwellers of Puri Nolia basti. “These slum dwellers have no land for themselves even though they served the city residents for years. This prompted me to think about a scheme to provide land deeds to the landless slum dwellers,” Patnaik said.
The Chief Minister claimed Jaga Mission is a novel scheme in the country and at least 2 lakh landless families of 2,000 slums across the state would be benefitted under the scheme.
Patnaik formally launched the scheme by providing land deeds to some slum dwellers of the Holy City. He also launched the mission for urban landless families of Bhadrak, Dhenkanal, Ganjam, Balasore, Kendrapara, Bargarh and Boudh districts through videoconferencing.
He also provided documents for house construction to the beneficiaries. Notably, the state government would provide housing, drinking water, lighting and other benefits to the beneficiaries of Jaga Mission.
While providing the land deeds to slum dwellers, Patnaik asked them whether they all are happy about it. He further said, “Your happiness is my happiness. Brining smile to the faces of poor people is my motto. I will continue my effort in this regard.”
Presiding over the event, Housing and Urban Development Minister Niranjan Pujari claimed that the state government has conducted a survey in 2,000 slums in the state through drones for successful implementation of the mission. “We had earlier provided land deeds to 2,000 landless families of Ganjam and Puri districts. We are now providing land rights to 10,000 more families. The state government has sanctioned `100 crore for the scheme in the first phase,” Pujari said.
Among others, Revenue Minister Maheswar Mohanty, Agriculture Minister Pradeep Maharathy, MPs Pinaki Mishra and Kulamani Samal and MLAs Samir Ranjan Dash, Umakanta Samantaray and Surendra Sethi were present at the event.
The Chief Minister, later, launched the pilgrimage scheme senior citizens from Titilagarh to Haridwar and Rishikesh through videoconferencing.
