Three hundred and thirty development projects worth ₹1,292 crore landed in Kendujhar on Friday, 6 November 2026 — and at the centre of it all stood a school-building mission that could reshape primary education across Odisha's tribal heartland. The Chief Minister's Office of Odisha announced that Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi inaugurated and laid foundation stones for the projects during his district visit, anchoring the drive around Phase III of the Godabarish Mishra Adarsh Prathamik Vidyalaya Yojana.

630 new model schools take root across Odisha

The centrepiece of the visit was the Phase III launch of the Godabarish Mishra Adarsh Prathamik Vidyalaya Yojana, under which foundation stones were laid for 630 new model primary schools across the state. The scheme is named after the celebrated Odia educationist Godabarish Mishra and aims to bring world-class infrastructure to primary education — the foundational layer that shapes every child's academic trajectory.

Odisha's tribal-majority districts, including Kendujhar, have historically struggled with school quality gaps despite significant mineral wealth flowing from the region. This phase of the scheme directly targets that asymmetry, bringing upgraded learning environments to communities that have long watched resources leave their soil without returning as opportunity.

A 15-floor Tech-Business Park and Dharanidhar's new south campus

Beyond classrooms, CM Majhi laid the foundation stone for a 15-storey Tech-Business Park in Kendujhar — explicitly designed to generate local employment so that the district's youth can build careers without leaving home. The state government framed it as a direct answer to the brain-drain pressure that mining towns routinely face.

Higher education also moved forward on the same day: the south campus of Dharanidhar University was inaugurated and dedicated to students. Alongside the inauguration, students received NCMC free bus cards — a National Common Mobility Card initiative to ease daily commutes for the university's growing population.

Odisha's first indigenous cancer screening centre, plus three new health colleges

Perhaps the sharpest signal of the visit's ambition came in healthcare. Dharanidhar Medical College in Kendujhar became home to what the government called the state's first fully indigenous Preventive Cancer Screening Centre — a facility built entirely on domestic capability at a time when early-detection infrastructure remains scarce outside metropolitan Odisha.

CM Majhi also laid foundation stones for a Dental College and a Nursing College in the district, and announced the establishment of a Government Pharmacy College in Kendujhar — a cluster of professional health-education institutions that could collectively transform the district into a regional medical-education hub.

Rounding out the health push, 23 new ambulances were flagged off for emergency medical services, and 26 modern sanitation vehicles were handed over to strengthen urban hygiene across the district.

What Kendujhar's big day means for Odisha's development map

Kendujhar contributes massively to Odisha's iron-ore economy yet ranks among the state's more under-served districts on human-development indices. Friday's package — primary schools, a tech park, a university campus, cancer screening, three professional colleges, ambulances, and sanitation vehicles — is a deliberate attempt to reverse that equation in a single concentrated burst of investment.

The watch-now questions are real: teacher recruitment for 630 schools at scale, the operational timeline of the Tech-Business Park, and whether the cancer screening centre can be staffed and sustained. But the architecture of intent is now on record — and in a mineral-rich district that has waited long for matched social investment, that matters.