Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday sanctioned Rs 423.87 crore in favour of 37 urban local bodies (ULBs) covering 10 districts of Central RDC division under the State-funded flagship scheme MUKTA for the financial year 2023-24.The ULBs of all 30 districts would be covered in the next two phases.

The 10 districts covered in first phase are Mayurbhanj, Baleswar, Jajpur, Jagatsinghpur, Bhadrak, Kendrapada, Cuttack, Khordha, Puri and Nayagarh.

Notably, on the direction of the Chief Minister, 5T Secretary VK Pandian had a videoconference with public representatives of 37 ULBs of the aforesaid 10 districts on June 2 and discussed with them on development of urban bodies under the MUKTA Yojana.

All these projects would be executed directly by the Mission Shakti groups as the implementing agency.