Bhubaneswar, May 6: The Science Express Climate Action Special (Secas) train, which was flagged off from Safdarjung station in New Delhi in February, will reach Odisha later this month.

Secas is an innovative mobile science exhibition mounted on a 16-coach air-conditioned train. The railways have custom built it for the Union department of science and technology.

The exhibition was launched in October 2007. It has since made eight tours of the country, travelling about 142,000km and exhibiting at 455 locations.

This is the ninth phase of the exhibition.

The train will halt at Bhadrak station from May 9 to 12. It will remain stationed at Puri station from May 13 to 16 and at Chatrapur from May 17 to 19. From there, it will move to Kottavalasa in Andhra Pradesh.

The objective of the exhibition is to convey the message on climate change. There will be scope for dialogue and discussions on the issue.

All the coaches of the train have been designed to address various issues related to climate change in a manner that is easy to understand for the people, including school students.

The train will halt at 68 stations across 20 states of the country in seven months. In previous phases, it halted at Balasore, Cuttack, Mancheswar, Berhampur, Angul, Rayagada, Titilagarh, Balangir and Sambalpur stations of Odisha.

Focus on schools

The state government will provide notebooks to primary and upper primary school students from this academic session.

The decision was taken to attract more students to government schools across the state. The diary will feature all the details about yearly plans, school programmes and schemes for students.

Also, in view of transportation problems faced by students living in remote areas of the state, the government has decided to provide conveyance cost to schoolchildren from this academic session.

The government will spend Rs 3,000 on each student every year and the amount will be deposited in the bank accounts of the students every month.

"Around 5,000 students have been identified in the tribal regions for this purpose. The list of beneficiaries for students from classes I to VIII has been prepared to provide them the transportation cost," said a senior officer from the school and mass education department.

Seize order

A specially designated court in Berhampur ordered confiscation of properties worth Rs 1.33 crore of Katloon Management and Financial Services Limited on Saturday.

In 2015, the director of the firm, Ashwini Nayak, was arrested by the economic offences wing of the crime branch and later last year, the company's promoter, Kailash Chandra Sethi, was also arrested on charges of duping people of nearly Rs 5 crore through its various branches.