Weeklyroundups

Shoes hurling on CM Naveen Patnaik at Kumbhari village during his election campaign was an unpleasant incident created by one Kartik Meher of Budhapali in Padampur sub-division. In an identical incident earlier, he had shown black flag to a political heavyweight. How this habitual offender sneaked into the first row escaping the close attention of the security personnel is the moot question rightly raised by the BJP in its defence. The BJD insists that it was an organized attack on the CM by the BJP, obviously to gain advantage out of the incident. Bijepur will go down in the history not only  as one of the closely fought by-elections but also as one that turned out to be star studded, full of barbs, bribery and violence. Union Minister for Handloom Smriti Irani who held the centre stage of campaign along with Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan referred to the attack on her predecessor Santosh Gangwar who had come to ascertain the plight of the weavers but was refrained from doing so. 

Campaigners knew well that farmers and weavers are the real game changers in the election and hence, the focus was on them. As the campaign during the hurly-burly week reached its last leg, the Congress seems to have lost the race. There was no meeting for its candidate Pranaya Sahu on last day of campaign. Meanwhile, it was Dharmendra Pradhan who stole the show at Barpali after he drove into a tea stall at Gandhi Chowk in Barpali and had tea besides interacting with locals in their own language.  If reports based on random samples are to be believed, BJD’s apple cart is going to be turned upside down. Meanwhile, the fate of 13 candidates including those from the BJP, the BJD and the Congress is sealed in the EVM box.

Malkangiri Red zone railway line welcome move

As a mark of respect indirectly to the demand of the Maoists, the Ministry of Railways has at last shown green signal to the 130 km stretch Jeypore-Malkangiri rail project. Rs 90 crore is allocated for this project in Railways’ current budget with a target to complete the same by 2021-22. With this, the Mao-infested area of Malkangiri has finally stepped into the much-hyped country’s mainstream development mode. Malkangiri, more often than not, covers news headlines because of activities related to Mao insurgency. 

It is not confirmed as to whether the land acquisition work is complete or not but even if the preliminary work is over, there is likely disturbance of work by the Maoists themselves during earth digging and laying of tracks as it happened during Gurupriya bridge construction. That is how there is every likelihood of the project getting delayed. Of late, the demand raised by the Naxalites or the Red army is now going to be addressed. It is a good news as the new line will provide basic infrastructure support for overall development, including industrial development of the area having large socio-economic ramifications. With launch of the project, the idea of combating Left Wing extremism through development path has received a big push.

Now medial college to run from NITR

One of the PM promised projects for Rourkela was upgradation of the Ispat General Hospital (IGH) into a super specialty hospital and medical college. Three years on, the much awaited project is still in its conception stage and sandwiched between conflicting newspaper reports and confusing statements of political leaders. Now that the 2019 election is closing in, the initial hurdles or the bottlenecks will have to be overcome within the shortest possible time to regain the public confidence and vindicate the Prime Minister’s announcement. There is a proposal now to set up the medical college in the NIT premises with practical training of the students in the IGH. The original proposal, though diluted, the Centre believes to push the project easily through the NIT which comes under the Ministry of Human Resources. Steel Minister Birendra Singh is believed to have been convinced by the SAIL which had least interest in the project from the beginning. Because of the Prime Minister’s announcement, the top notch SAIL officials could not openly oppose the same but shelved it in the back door hush-hush. 

The Steel Minister who is a hard nut to crack did not care to take the proposal on his strides. Senior bureaucrat Pramod  Kumar Mishra, a west Odisha IAS product, who came to a function in NIT as a guest recently, saw the potential of the institute in terms of infrastructure available and tried to push through the proposal on a diversified route in what is called a face saving formula for the PMO. According to a new policy of the Centre, all NITs will have one medical college each and Rourkela will be one among them. Medical college in NIT and Super Specialty Hospital in the IGH where the students will take practical lessons is the new idea mooted by the PMO and credit for this goes to senior bureaucrat Mishra.

Brahmani grime: Pollute and go scot free

A huge quantity of fish was found dead and floating on river Brahmani as contaminated water discharged by Rourkela Steel Plant and the Rourklea Municipal Corporation (RMC) found its way to the river a couple of days back. The fishing community which lives across the river bank stretching to almost 20 to 25 km downstream is said to have been worst affected. For many of the residents, fishing is their only source of income. Water sample has been collected by the regional head of the Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) and sent for laboratory test to ascertain the reasons and the pollution level of the water. 

Meanwhile, the RSP authorities have denied any such water being released into the river. Tarkera village is situated at the tail end of river Sankh where a pump house is set up to draw water for regular use in the plant. It has a large water storage point with sludge getting accumulated but never cleaned for years. People of the area, more often, complain about non-purified water getting into the river source which assumes a menacing proportion at times. The toxic water finds its way to the river creating a miserable situation for the living amphibians, besides the fish. 

It is time, the RSP and RMC authorities put in place the required mechanism to eradicate this menace, once and for all. The authorities, if found guilty, should be handed out adequate punishment by the enforcement authorities and compensate the poor fishermen for losing their earnings for a sustainable living. Pollute and go scot free may be a onetime affair, but cannot continue for long right under the nose of a dynamic regional officer of the OSPCB.