Minister denies raw deal to Odisha

The Centre has refuted Odisha’s allegation of discrimination and said, it is more concerned for the development of backward states.

“We are not discriminating Odisha because it is a non-Congress ruled state. In fact, we are more concerned about backward states. We have raised budgetary allocation for Odisha in 2011-12 from the previous year. Now it is for the state government to implement those schemes,” said V Narayanswami, Union minister of state in the Prime Ministers’ Office (PMO) at a press meet here.

Last week, Naveen Patnaik had written an open letter to the Union railway minister C P Joshi, objecting to frequent reduction in budgetary allocation to Odisha. Swami, however, avoided the specific query.

He took a dig at the dismal performance of the state government in checking infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate.