Sambalpur: In a remarkable display of people’s government, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi took entire government machinery to the doorstep of people to hear their grievances.
Accompanied by 10 Ministers and several Secretaries, Chief Minister Majhi today heard public grievances at Sambalpur. This is for the first time that a Chief Minister held a public grievance hearing session outside the capital city of Bhubaneswar.
The Sambalpur Municipal Corporation office complex was bustling, as the entire State administration temporarily relocated to Sambalpur to listen to and address people’s issues.
People from 10 western Odisha districts including Sambalpur, Deogarh, Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Bargarh, Bolangir, Boudh, Kalahandi, Nuapada and Sonepur attended the session. Even the people from Koraput also submitted their petitions, Majhi said, adding that physically challenged and elderly persons were given priority in the hearing.
Similar grievance hearings will be organized in other parts of the state in the coming days, Majhi said.
“We will take the government to different regions of the state so that the people can come for redress of their grievances. The people from Western Odisha during the previous BJD government could not meet the Chief Minister and seek justice from the government,” Majhi told reporters after the session.
“As it is said that ‘Arakhita ku Daiba Saha’, our government is committed to provide assistance to all distressed people,” the CM said.
He said the BJP government since July 2024 has held nine such sessions in Bhubaneswar and it was decided to provide such a facility to the people in the western region of the State.
He informed that 88 per cent of the 9,377 grievance petitions received by the Chief Minister’s Grievance Cell have been addressed and people have got benefits.
On the 10th round of the Chief Minister’s public hearing programme here, as many as 1,000 people had registered their names.
Another 1,368 people who could not register on the portal also submitted their petitions. A total of 6,000 petitions were received. Action will be taken on all the petitions, Majhi assured.
He said that clear instructions have been given to officials to resolve all the complaints at the earliest.
ShriMajhi said as part of the programme here, 18 individuals suffering from terminal illnesses were provided immediate medical assistance totalling Rs 19.5 lakh from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund through the Single Window System.
A medical team was present in the grievance hearing hall and they recommended treatments after which assistance was sanctioned from the CMRF, he said.
In the single window system, immediate assistance is being provided from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund to people suffering from incurable and terminal illnesses. Today, 18 people have been provided medical assistance of Rs. 19.50 lakh for their medical expenses under this system.
To speed up the process of providing this immediate assistance, a medical team was also deployed in the grievance room.
Not only medical assistance, the complainants came with various other problems. After listening to all the complaints with great attention, the members of the cabinet and the senior secretary-level officers present would give instructions to the concerned authorities over the telephone, if necessary.
Today, along with the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Empowerment Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo, Minister for Revenue and Disaster Management Suresh Pujari, Minister for Health and Family Welfare Mukesh Mahaling, Minister for Housing and Urban Development Krishna Chandra Mohapatra, Minister for Forest, Environment and Climate Change Ganesh Ram Singh Khuntia, Minister for Panchayati Raj Drinking Water and Rural Development Rabi Narayan Nayak, Minister for Food Supply and Consumer Welfare Krishna Chandra Patra, Minister for Industries Sampada Chandra Swain, Minister for Steel and Mines Bibhuti Bhushan Jena, Minister for Schools and Mass Education Nityanand Gand, Minister for Higher Education and Culture Suryavanshi Suraj, were prominently present and heard the grievances of the people.
Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Satyabrat Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary, Public Grievances and Public Administration, Surendra Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management, Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh, and senior secretary-level officers of other departments were also present and supervised the work.