By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik flagged off the LAccMI bus service in Koraput district on Third Thursday of Margashira Month, The service will be available in 50 routes of all the 10 Blocks of the district.As of now, 63 Laxmi buses will connect 234 panchayats of Koraput.
Transport Minister Tukuni Sahu, 5T and Nabin Odisha Chairman VK Pandian, Padmini Dayan of Kotpad, Patangi MLA Pitam Padhi, Jaipur MLA Tara Prasad Maharajpati, Lakshmipur MLA Prabhu Jani, Koraput MLA Raghuram Padal, Special Development Council Chairman Chandrasekhar Majhi, and District Council President Sammita Meleka were among those present.
With the launch of the bus service under the Location Accessible Multimodal Initiative (LAccMI) scheme, people will get transport facility from Panchayats to Blocks and Blocks to District Headquarters at affordable fare.
Chief Minister said that the first phase of the Laxmi bus service started from Malkangari and reached Koraput today. In the first phase, 63 lakh residents in 1,131 panchayats of Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Kalahandi, Gajapati, and Koraput districts got the benefits of the Laxmi bus service. The Chief Minister said that daily hassles for transit would be removed and people can now commute at low cost.
On this occasion, the Chief Minister also said that the development of villages is in progress in Odisha. A new awakening has come in the panchayats through the ‘Ama Odisha Nabin Odisha’ programme. Digital infrastructure has evolved along with the spread of Jagannath culture, he said adding that development has become a mass movement and panchayats today and the Laxmi bus scheme has become the heart of development programmes. The transformation of the village has paved the way for the transformation of Odisha. “Odisha belongs to all of us,” he said.
5T and Nabin Odisha Chairman VK Pandian said that the buses of Laxmi Bus Yojana were bought with the money of the people of the state. So he requested everyone to treat it as their property and take proper care of the vehicles. He informed the people the Chief Minister has approved the proposal to provide land for a new bus stand in Koraput.
