Paralakhemundi: After Malkangiri, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today flagged off buses under the Location Accessible Multimodal Initiative (LAccMI) scheme to provide affordable transportation for people in Gajapati district.

The scheme will connect panchayats and blocks in Gajapati with the district headquarters by bus.

In the first phase of the scheme, 36 LAccMI buses will ply in seven blocks of the district. The CM inaugurated the bus services via a video conferencing programme from Bhubaneswar.

The LAccMI scheme, the state government's most ambitious project, was launched on October 12 in Malkangiri district. Under the scheme, 36 buses started plying on different routes in the district last week.

After Malkangiri and Gajapati, four other tribal-dominated districts -- Nabarangpur, Koraput, Rayagada and Kandhamal -- will be covered under the scheme in the first phase.

In September, the state government had approved the LAccMI, a new public transport network programme, to establish a seamless public transport network across the state from gram panchayat level to the state capital. Under the scheme, the buses will connect all panchayats, blocks, district headquarters and major towns in the state. More than 1,000 buses will ply across the state under the LAccMI scheme. The project cost is estimated to be approximately Rs.3,178 crore in the first three years of bus operation from 2023-24 to 2025-26.