Bhubaneswar, Nov 11: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will gherao all blocks and urbal local body (ULB) offices across Odisha from November 15 to 18 in protest against the 'lackadaisical' attitude of the State government towards the youth masses.

Party's State spokesperson Sonali Sahu stated this at a Press conference here today.

"Despite having been rich in natural resources, youths of Odisha are going outside for earning livelihood," rued Sahu.

She said Odisha has 487 km long coast and houses 1810 tonne bauxite, 5153 MT of iron ore, 174 MT chromite, 65,000 MT coal, 174 tonne manganese 58 lakh hectare jungle and 61 hectares cultivable land.

As compared to other State, Odisha has a very few number of industries. "While Tamilnadu has 38,131 industries, BJP-ruled State Gujarat has 26,842 industries. But Odisha has oly 3,063 industries," she said.

The BJP leader expressed unhappiness that industries like OTM, BTM, Konark TV and jute mills have been closed in Odisha. As many as 13 spinning mills, four sugar mills and 10 powerlooms have been closed by the BJD government," she said.

She alleged that leaders, Ministers and officers of the Odisha government have spent crores of taxpayers' money in touring to foreign countries in the name of Make in Odisha event.

The number of job aspirants enroled in Empoyment Exchanges has increased from 8,98,717 as on Dec 31, 2022 to 11,06,536 as on October 03, 2023. However, only 1866 people have been given employment in the last 5 years from 2019 to 2023, she lamented.

Quoting Minister Priti Ranjan Ghadei's information in Assembly, Sahu said there are currently, 1,85,000 government jobs lying vacant in Odisha. Instead of giving jobs to youths, the State government has re-emplyed over 50,000 retired employees against various posts in differnt departments.
As many as 10,76,496 migrant labourers had returned home in Odisha during the Covid. Though the State government promised to do skill mapping of these workers and give them job, no attempt has been make in this regard yet.

"The BJD governemnt has betrayed youths of the State. We will raise all these issues during our statewide protest from Novermber 15 to 18," Sahu said.

Among others, BJP State Mahila Morcha media cell convenor Truptimayee Makdam and Sanjaya Rath were present.

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