Odisha bagged two national awards at the second edition of the Janaagraha City Governance Awards announced on Tuesday at a virtual ceremony presided over by Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri in New Delhi.
The State won in two of five award categories competing with 54 applicants spanning across 17 States.The Housing and Urban Development won Best State Award for JAGA Mission for enactment of laws, drafting of policies, setting up of institutional mechanisms, programmes or schemes to successfully foster urban decentralisation incities and the State. The JAGA Mission was selected on basis of Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Act, 2017 and for transforming urban slums into liveable habitats with intensive community mobilisation and empowering slum dwellers through Slum Development Associations. The Public Health Engineering Organisation won Best Civic Agency Award for universal access to piped water supply through demonstrable inter-agency coordination and decentralisation in practice. H&UD Principal Secretary G Mathi Vathanan received awards.The awards have been instituted in memory of V Ramachandran, a doyen of decentralisation, to recognise groundbreaking works in decentralisation in urban context.