Bhubaneswar:
Almost an year after taking voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), Sujata Rout Kartikeyan on Thursday joined the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) here.
She was the face of the BJD’s flagship Mission Shakti programme and she joined the party in the presence of party chief and former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
She is wife of former IAS officer and BJD leader VK Pandian, who is considered close to Patnaik.
After joining the BJD, she said, “I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work under Naveen Patnaik’s leadership and serve the people of Odisha for the last 24 years.”
Kartikeyan said that today again, she was blessed to get this opportunity once again to work for the state under the leadership of Patnaik.
“With the grace of Lord Jagannath and blessings of people of Odisha, I shall continue to work for Odisha and her people with complete dedication and commitment,” she added.
Kartikeyan, who holds a Bachelors degree in political science from Lady Shri Ram College and Delhi university topper
Masters in international politics from
JNU belongs to 2000 batch IAS batch.
During IAS training, she was awarded the Ashok Bambawale Memorial Award for the best officer trainee in Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy. She got her home cadre odisha in IAS.
She was posted as Collector in maoist affected Sundargarh district and there she started the cycle scheme for high school students through Bank sponsorship.
In 2005 when road access to schools was challenging especially for young girls and there was sharp dropout of tribal girls after eighth standard, she ensured to provide cycles to girl students through bank sponsorship .
The motto was “Mobility is Empowerment” and this simple intervention enabled girls to continue high school education while empowering them otherwise too. This was later taken up by state government for all schools across Odisha.
Kartikeyan was also known as “ football collector “ in Sundargarh due to her penchant for distributing footballs in far off villages bordering Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh .
She was welcomed by youths as she got with her footballs and hockey equipment encouraging young boys n girls to take up sports and stay away from maoism activities or drugs .
She also actively encouraged promotion of hockey in the district and was instrumental in setting up hostels for female players and astro turf fields.
She viewed sports as a way of life and as a mode of empowering the youth.
In 2006 she introduced egg in the Mid Day Meal scheme in all government schools of Sundargarh.
This was inaugurated by then Chief Minister Naveen patnaik and later scaled up across the state. Instead of increasing the quantity of dal or oil in MDM which were not very measurable, an egg was added in the weekly meals of kids. This immediately saw enrolment go up with little siblings attending school on egg days.
She was the first woman collector of Cuttack district and then joined as Director Social Welfare in state government.
The popular Mamta scheme was launched under her – a conditional cash transfer, maternity benefit scheme which was applicable universally.
This scheme’s success inspired the erstwhile IGMBS (Indira Gandhi maternity benefit scheme). It recognised the nutritional and rest needs of pregnant women and young mothers.
To ensure dignity of women and reduce paperwork and red tapism it followed a self declaration format for claiming benefits and was universal in nature. Even today Mamta is a popular scheme for young mothers in Odisha.
Shr also steered the Mission Shakti initiative for many years, the flagship initiative of Patnaik.
Under her leadership it grew to a robust movement of 70 lakh women. The credit linkage to women’s groups increased from Rs 500 crore to RS 15000 crorr in 7 years.
To encourage entrepreneurship among women, zero percent loans upto Rs 10 lakh was introduced.
This saw a surge in women’s enterprises across Odisha.
Another unique intervention taken up by her was systematic tying up of government business to women’s groups.
More than one lakh groups were involved in government activities like electricity bill collection, road construction, procurement, nursery raising, managing public infrastructure, running Laxmi buses, managing Mission Shakti cafés and so on.
Their total turnover from government work alone was Rs 11000 crore in 5 years .
The entire thrust of Mission Shakti was identity and empowerment . Women SHG members were routinely taken on exposure visits to Dubai and Singapore.
To encourage marketing of SHG products Mission Shakti bazaars were set up across the state with an iconic boutique store in Bhubaneswar and tie up with e commerce platforms.
Bill Gates visited this store and appreciated the marketing of agricultural products to an urban consumer base .
As secretary Culture which she held for a brief period of five months, she was instrumental in hosting the first ever World Odia language Conference in Bhubaneswar. It was attended by language enthusiasts from across the world, Odia diaspora and thousands of college students and was a big success.
