Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday directed extension of the cheap food scheme Aahar to 29 districts and ordered the officials to set up 57 centres in the urban areas of the districts to provide the Rs 5-rice and dalma meal by February 25.
Patnaik, through videoconferencing, directed the district Collectors to set up the Aahar centres within the deadline. A total of 30,300 meals would be prepared in these centres daily.
Except Sambalpur, the centres would be set up in other districts, said Housing and Urban Development Minister Puspendra Singh Deo after the meeting.
The centres would be set up at district headquarters, hospitals and industrial towns with the help of eligible funding agencies, added Singh Deo.
The Government on April 1 had opened 21 Aahar centres in five major cities, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Brahmapur and Sambalpur.
The Chief Minister too directed the officials to exclude all the names of all the undeserving persons from the National Food Security Act (NFSA) by January 15. He asked the officials to provide food grains to beneficiaries byJanuary 31.
Patnaik also said there would be no timeframe for deserving beneficiaries to apply for the NFSA benefit.
Stating that teaching would start from the 2016-17 academic session at 100 Model Schools, Patnaik ordered completion of infrastructure work, electrification, water supply, construction of boundary wall and road connectivity to schools by that time.