Odisha: The Odisha government has come up with a new scheme to provide legal assistance to the deprived sections of the society at the grassroots level in all its 6,812 gram panchayats across the state. The scheme named after great Odia lawyer, ‘Madhubabu Aain Sahayata Sibir’ will offer legal services once a week. The advocate engaged for the legal assistance cell will be paid an amount of 500 rupees fee per sitting to provide free legal advice to the people. Government hopes the system would help in reducing number of litigations in the courts.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had, in February this year, announced formation for village level legal cell to improve access to the justice delivery system to the poor and the underprivileged people and setting up of Law University in the state for improving the standards of legal education in the state.