Odisha Planning Board member longs for a pucca house
She has just been nominated as a member of the Odisha State Planning Board, but 68-year-old tribal woman Kamala Pujari does not have a pucca roof over her head.
Pujari, from the Bhumia community, was nominated along with four others as members of the board that makes five-year plans for the state and the 30 districts apart from providing short-and long-term policy guidelines.
But the honour may have brought little cheer for the widow, who, despite having brought laurels to Odisha by preserving hundreds of local varieties of paddy, continues to live in a mud-and-thatch house in Koraput district’s Patraput village with her two sons.
Pujari, who still tills her land to make a living, is reported to have told her family that she would have been happier with a pucca house than a membership of the planning board.
“She is hardly enthused by the CM’s announcement of making her a member of the State Planning Board. She wanted a pucca house of her own under any government scheme than these posts,” said Sudam Pujari, her grandson.
Pujari, who had brought laurels to Odisha by winning the ‘Equator Initiative Award’ in South Africa in 2002, had a hostel building in Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology in Bhubaneswar named after her.
The irony is not lost on her family members. “My grandmother gets invited to inaugurate buildings named after her. But why can’t the government give her a pucca house?” asked her grandson.
Pujari’s family said she had applied for a house under the Indira Awas Yojana in 2016, but it was not granted. However, her younger son Tankadhar has been allocated a pucca house under the Pradhan Mantri Grameen Awas Yojana, which is still under construction.
Headed by chief minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik, the State Planning Board is more of a rehabilitation ground for disgruntled ruling party members. In September last year, the state government had told the Odisha assembly that the Planning Board has not met even once in the past 10 years.
BHUBANESWAR: