The BJP State unit on Monday alleged that the Naveen Patnaik Government is on an attacking mode against the Mahanadi Coalfields limited (MCl) after the public sector undertaking company denied funding the State’s low-cost meal scheme Aahar.
Briefing mediapersons here, BJP leader Kalandi Samal said the ruling BJD with the help of local administration has been creating economic blockade by stopping coalmines in Talcher from time to time. This type of attitude has left so many people of Angul district in problems, he added.
“Why the police and the district administration don’t take any steps when some organisations having a few people with them observe bandh by stopping the mines without any valid reasonIJ” asked Samal, adding, “Due to the blockade, 30,000 labourers and 2,000 truck drivers and helpers don’t get their daily wages.”
He said the State Government took four long years to give a no-objection certificate (NOC) for the setting up of a medical college funded by the MCl. “A decision had been taken as far back as in 2008, but the MCl’s medical college got NOC in 2014,” he said.
On July 25 this year, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had directed the MCl authorities to solve the problems of displaced people within three months. But the State Government is yet to appoint any land Acquisition Officer or Rehabilitation Officer to settle the disputes of the people to be displaced due to the medical college project, said Samal.
The State Government gets the highest revenue from Talcher, but it shuts its eyes while discussing about development of the area, he said.