Property details of officials, BJD's people's representatives to be in public domain: Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday announced that the property details of all elected people's representatives of the ruling BJD including him, besides government officials at all levels will be put in the public domain for scrutiny. Noting that corruption is the biggest hurdle to development, Patnaik, while addressing the BJD's state council meeting here, said, "Submission of the property statements by people's representatives of the party from the sarpanch to the chief minister and the lowest ranking official to the chief secretary will be mandatory. This will be put in the public domain."

Stating that Odisha is one of the few states to have a "powerful" Lokayukta, Patnaik said all the property statements will be referred to the ombudsman.

"The move will be a major step in curbing corruption. Odisha will be the first state in the country to take such a measure," he said.


In the last one year, the state government has placed 91 officials under suspension and stopped pensions of some retired employees on corruption charges, Patnaik said.

With regard to the MPs from Odisha, he said, "Our party MPs will do it voluntarily and set an example for the entire country."

Patnaik, who had in two recent party meetings spoke on central negligence and character of national parties, focused on transparency and anti-corruption in Monday's meeting.

Asserting that the BJD government's fight is against poverty, disease, regional imbalance, natural calamities, injustice and inefficiencies, he said, "All such fights will fail to give any positive result unless there is transparency and eradication of corruption from the system."

"The fight against corruption will help us in our fight against all ills of society -- be it inequality, poverty, injustice, in fact, all maladies," he said.

The chief minister called upon his cabinet colleagues to interact with the party's district functionaries and act on their constructive suggestions.

He urged party functionaries to give suggestions on the requirements of their regions and promised to go through each of them and implement the good ones.

Patnaik narrated one such instance in which the party's Mayurbhanj district committee suggested to rename the North Odisha University as Shri Ramachandra Bhanja Deo University.

"Our government will approve this suggestion. I want district committees to be proactive and the administration as well as the party will take your suggestions seriously," he said.