Even as political analysts get busy dissecting the electoral successes of the BJD in the panchayat as well as urban local body elections, the one aspect that comes out large is the innumerable welfare schemes and its implementation.

While critics and opposition party leaders frown at the plethora of doles, gifts and schemes dished out prior to elections, the electorate did believe and benefit from them.

The entire officialdom was busy evolving schemes and ensuring early as well as effective implementation.

Significantly, Minister Pratap Jena holds both the portfolios of panchayati raj and housing and urban development.

The BJD has won 90 percent of the zilla parishad seats, formed zilla parishads in all 30 districts, captured almost 90 percent of panchayat samitis in the panchayat polls while it also registered victory in around 90 percent of the civic bodies, which itself a record for any political party in Odisha.

Though Jena considers Naveen Patnaik as the only factor behind BJD’s massive success as people repose their faith in his leadership, he said as the state government goes the extra mile to ensure that benefits of welfare schemes reach the target population, people now feel part of the government.

Unlike the opposition parties, who go to people only during polls, we work round the year for the poor and downtrodden,” said Jena.

Implementation of two livelihood programmes– MGNREGS for rural poor and the Mukhyamantri Karma Tatpara Abhiyan (MUKTA) for urban poor helped the state government to provide employment to lakhs of migrant workers, who returned to the state following Covid induced lockdown, he observed.

Even during the pandemic over 20.81 crore person-days of works were achieved under MGNREGS and till February over 18 crore person days has been achieved. Rs 700 crore was spent under the MUKTA scheme.

As many as 63 civic bodies have already achieved 100 percent household tap water connections in the state. Besides, Puri is the only city in India to have achieved the distinction of joining the prestigious league of international cities like New York, London, Singapore and Tokyo of ensuring 24×7 supply of directly drinkable water from tap under the Sujal plan, he said.

Under slum upgradation and delisting activities, around 1.70 lakh families have already been granted land rights certificates and eight cities have already achieved slum free status.

The state government has a new programme- Biju Adarsh Colony programme that aims transforming slums to model colonies. As many as 2,974 slums across 114 civic bodies of the state will be transformed under the plan.