The Odisha Development Forum (ODF), led by its president Rama Prasad Tripathy said the ODF would launch a “Jana Sachetana Yatra” from October 30 for establishment of a full-fledged airport at Brahmapur.
During the Naveen Patnaik regime, the Government is busy doing development works only for Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Puri, and western Odisha but not for south Odisha. Under the UDDAN scheme, the Government is setting up airports in smaller towns like Paradip, Jeypore, Utkela, Puri Rourkela but ignoring Brahmapur, the second biggest urban cluster of the State, Tripathy told a Press conference. "The Transport Minister’s recent irresponsible statement that a 10-seat plane would soon fly from the Rangailunda airstrip to Bhubaneswar and Visakhapatnam is a clear indicator of sabotage and contrary to the public perceptions and interest since the idea mooted in 2008 was experimented and had failed," he said.
Besides the awareness campaign, the forum is contemplating to call Ganjam Bandh and Brahmapur Bandh if the demand is not met, he cautioned.
ODF secretary Swarjya Sahu, senior members Lakshminarayan Padhi, V. Someswar Rao, Preetish Panigrahi, Balakrushna Samantray, Krushna Chandra Sahu, Ambika Panda, Manasranjan Patra, Kiran Kumar Panda, Santosh Sahu, Ramesh Sahu, MVS Bhasan and Prasant Panda were present.
