Naveen banks on industrial parks to create jobs

The Orissa government would set up many industrial parks to boost entrepreneurship and generate employment opportunities in the state, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said here.

“We will not only go for setting up of large industries but also encourage small and medium industries for the sake of generating jobs for our youths”, Patnaik said while addressing a public gathering organized by the Biju Janata Dal.

He inaugurated a milk processing unit at Angul. The state will produce five million tonnes of milk in the next ten years and the milk farms also will create employment, he said.

The Chief Minister further said that farmers are the cornerstone of the state’s progress and his government has placed maximum emphasis on the development of the farm sector.

Keeping in view the repeated droughts in the state chief minister announced that a new mega irrigation policy is on the anvil.

“For drought affected people in the state government had announced special package to provide them soft and subsidized loans. Crop insurance scheme will be also introduced at each panchayat in the state in the current rabi season”, he added.

Earlier the Chief Minister attended the sensitization cum convention programme of Rogi Klayan Samiti (RKS) and Gram Kalyan samiti (GKS) activists under National Rural Health Mission. He said that though the state had by and large controlled the infant and maternal mortality rates to a great extent, malaria and malnutrition still remain a matter of concern.

Others who spoke on the occasion were state agriculture minister Damodar Rout, pnachayati raj minister Prafulla Samal, revenue minister Surya Narayan Patra, government chief whip Rabi Pani and local MP Tathagata Satpathy.