Yesterday, when the rest of the nation was celebrating Holi, the district of Sundargarh looked like a microcosm of Odisha at large.
Leading a high-level team under the bright March morning sun, Odisha Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra and Secretary to Chief Minister VK Pandian visited the Biju Patnaik University of Technology campus in Rourkela to review the ongoing construction of the Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium that is scheduled to co-host the Men’s Hockey World Cup with Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar.
The upcoming facility in Rourkela will not only be India’s largest hockey stadium, with a spectator capacity of 20,000, but also one of its most modern ones, featuring AstroTurf (as per the standards of International Hockey Federation), a bleeding-edge fitness centre and multiple practice turfs, not to mention floodlights for night matches.
With the big event less than a year away (January 23-29, 2023), everyone involved in the project has their work cut out. The visiting high-level team, therefore, advised the officials concerned to speed up their work so that the colossal undertaking is ready in good time.
The Chief Minister’s Office confirmed in a press release yesterday that efforts to boost Rourkela’s credentials as a smart city and a cultural hub have also been stepped up – from a traffic command centre, a tribal museum and a market complex with a 5 MT cold storage facility (for supporting the livelihood of small farmers and fruit and vegetable vendors), to road construction and other beautification projects – for completion before the start of the global sporting event.
However, the high-level team’s visit to Sundargarh was not all about getting ready for the Hockey World Cup.
The team – which included Principal Secretary Industries Hemant Sharma, Secretary Sports and Youth Services R Vineel Krishna and Managing Director IDCO Bhupinder Singh Poonia – also visited the Udit Nagar High School in Rourkela to review its Smart Classroom, e-Library, Modern Science Lab, playground and other infrastructure. Under the “High School Transformation under 5T” initiative, the government had committed to modernise 67 high schools in the district – and now work is under way to soon set the new target at 100.
The Odisha government seems to have also put its mission of corruption eradication on the fast track.
The past couple of years have seen unprecedented action on this front. Take just last week, for instance: Six more officials were given compulsory retirement on grounds of graft and inefficiency, taking the total tally of such cases in the Naveen Patnaik era to 158. While the Enforcement Directorate attached assets worth 3.94 crore from an Odisha Financial Official (and her OAS husband) and Rs 1.52 crore from a former BJD MLA, the raids made by Odisha Vigilance teams on multiple premises of an assistant engineer working at a Rural Works division in Balasore district hogged the headlines. Yesterday’s biggest news was about the Economic Offences Wing of Odisha finally arresting an absconding businessman in connection with a Rs 100-crore loan fraud case.
But the Naveen Patnaik government has been in no rush to lift all pandemic-related restrictions in the state. In its Covid-19 guidelines for this month, it wisely banned the celebration of Holi and related rituals in public places while allowing people to celebrate the occasion with their family members at home. Taken nearly three weeks ago, how laudably foresighted this decision has proven to be in light of the Centre’s alert to the nation yesterday about not letting its guard down amidst another wave of Covid hitting several countries worldwide.
With such an efficient and exemplary administration serving them, though, the people of Odisha have little reason to be worried.
Happy Holi, everyone!
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