Bhubaneswar, Jan 11 (IANS): Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday asked government officials to treat the citizens with dignity.

He said every public servant must understand that the citizen is the master.

"The public servant is here to serve the citizens. There should be a conviction on this vision. So I would like to ask every public servant to treat the citizens with dignity," the Chief Minister said.

Patnaik was speaking at the joining of the Housing and Urban Development (H&UD) Department under the Mo Sarkar initiative with an objective to bring in professionalism and effect behavioural change.

"I am glad that our initiative to bring all the departments under Mo Sarkar by March 31 this year is catching up momentum. And in this sequence, I am glad that the Housing and Urban Development Department is coming under Mo Sarkar initiative today," he said.

"While we are set to provide quality drinking water to all the households in urban areas of the state, we are also providing basic rights to urban poor through Jaga Mission," he added.

Jaga Mission recently received World Habitat Award for providing land rights to more than 50,000 urban poor families.

H&UD Minister Pratap Jena said his department is fully prepared to take up the challenges of providing better services to people under Mo Sarkar.