More hostels to come up for tribal students in Odisha

Panchayati Raj and Tribal Affairs V Kishore Chandra Deo gave this assurance to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who called on him here.

"Deo also assured to sanction 20 new ashram schools during 2012-13 upon receipt of utilisation certificates of the grants sanctioned," an official statement said.

The state has already completed construction of 40 hostels for ST children out of 65 sanctioned during 2010-11 and the rest were nearing completion, Patnaik said.

He said the state has formulated an innovative and comprehensive strategy for implementation over a five-year period between 2012-13 to 2016-17 to ensure that there is no homestead-less and landless ST household in Tribal Sub-Plan areas covering 118 blocks.

In this regard, he requested Deo to sanction the innovative project envisaging a cost of Rs 31.37 crore as innovative project component.

While appreciating the concerns of Odisha on 159 proposals pending for a long time, Deo said his Ministry has to be guided by the Registrar General of India (RGI) on this issue. (More)