1 week Ago By The Hans India
Bhubaneswar: Odisha Deputy Chief Minister Pravati Parida on Monday said the State government has decided to restructure all Mission Shakti organisations to connect every household under its fold. Speaking to reporters, Parida said the Union government had asked to link each household with women self-help groups (SHGs). However, the previous (BJD) government did not pay heed to it, “depriving” many families of the Mission Shakti programme, she said.
Therefore, the government has now started a process to include the left-out households under the programme, said Parida, who is also the minister in-charge of Mission Shakti department. “The previous government had also removed women members affiliated to a particular political party. So, now, all women, irrespective of party line, will get the opportunity to take part in the election for various functionaries in the Mission Shakti organisation,” she said.
Fresh appointments will be made by replacing present presidents and secretaries in SHGs to create leadership at the grassroots level, the Deputy Chief Minister said. Stating that SHGs will be revamped this month, Parida said new appointments will be made at Gram Panchayat Level Federations (GPLF), Cluster Level Federations (CLF) and Block level Federations (BLF) as well as district and State level organisations in the next month. Those holding posts twice for more than four years will be changed as the previous government had used them for political purposes to get votes, Parida alleged.
Reacting to this move of the BJP government, senior BJD MLA Pramila Mallik said, “The BJP government now wants to use women for political purposes. The government wants to insult those who became Lakhpati Didi due to their hard work.” The women have realised that they are being “exploited” by the BJP government, she said.
Congress MLA Sofia Firdous said, “It is unfortunate that both BJD and BJP governments have treated women as a vote bank only.” She appealed to the Odisha government to empower the existing SHG members and include new women under the programme..
