Bhubaneswar: Naveen Patnaik, the Chief Minister of Odisha, inaugurated a residential school for poor children on Monday.
Patnaik used virtual mode to open the Emami-KISS Residential School in Balasore, a branch of the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS).
Spread over 12 acres of land, the school has been built at a cost of Rs 50 crore and includes a mechanized kitchen, and a 25-bed hospital.
Inaugurating the facility, the chief minister said around 1,200 economically challenged students from Class I to 12 will be provided free education in this school at Remuna in the first phase under the CBSE curriculum.
KISS has taken initiative to open fully free residential schools for poor and underprivileged tribal children in 30 districts of Odisha. This would strengthen our initiative to give quality education to all children, he said.
Patnaik said the state government was giving importance to education and is transforming the schools under the 5T initiative. More than 4,000 state-run high schools have so far been transformed with modern facilities, he said.
Odia Language, Literature and Culture Department Minister Ashwini Patra praised the initiative by KISS and Emami. Local MP Pratap Sarangi, Remuna MLA Sudhanshu Parida, KIIT and KISS Founder Achyuta Samanta, representative of the Emami group Susil Goenka and Balasore Collector K Sudarshan Chakravarthy were present at the function.
