Jairam Ramesh slams Naveen Patnaik for playing tribal card

--Points fingure towards health services  

Ramesh felicitating Hariharan at Sanjukta Panigrahy Music and Dance festival at Bhubaneswar

BHUBANESWAR: Central Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said that political will than finance is needed to solve the problems of the State. The Government which claims as the champions of tribal welfare and playing tribal card should go to the ground and work for them, he added. He alleged that the development of different regions of the State could not take place in spite of all helps provided by the centre.

“I would appeal to leaders of Odisha who have suddenly discovered themselves as champions of tribal welfare and tribal interests that the best way of standing up for tribal issues is actually doing something on the ground on tribal welfare programmes ... especially health,” Ramesh said.

Countering Ramesh’s opinion, Heath Minister Prasanna Acharya said, “If Ramesh has sympathy for the State, why he is not doing development works. This is not politics and it is not fair to amalgamate politics with the development of the tribals. It is our duty to create social consciousness instead of doing politics in the matter.”

Ramesh said the State Government has responsibility in delivering development services like roads, power, health services and other services. Money is not a constraint as we have been providing enormous demand of resources, he said adding, “In Odisha, out of 30 districts, 18 districts have been classified as Left Wing Extremist districts. For each district, they are getting 30 crore.”

Lashing out the Centre, Minister Acharya said, “It is not compassion that the Centre provides us fund. As our State is an undivided part of the country, we have also right to ask fund as we are also giving income tax and revenues from mines and other sources.”

Ramesh also said money is not an issue, they need political activity. He emphasised on proper implementation of the tribal welfare programmes.

On the other hand the Health Minister said the State Government has completed many programmes for the development of the tribals within 12 year, but they didn’t get that much of support from the Centre which was needed in the past for the tribal development work.