The Odisha Krushak Mahasangha demanded that the State Government take permanent measures to protect Odisha from natural calamities like cyclone and flood.
The farmers’ outfit also held deforestation responsible for the current floods and underscored the need for a mammoth drive to plant trees both in the coastal as well as interior districts.
The Sangha said that floods in Subarnarekha and other branch rivers are man-made. Due to deforestation, around 40-50 per cent of lakes at every rivers of the State have been buried under sands reducing the absorbing capacity of the rivers.
Due to deforestation, the resultant flood situation has devastated districts including Baleswar and Mayurbhanj, the Sangha said, demanding that the State Government take immediate measures for large scale afforestation in the coastal areas.
“Forest patches with width of a km should be developed along the 480-km-long coastal corridor,” Sangha president Pratap Dash opined.Besides, the Sangha also demanded connection of rivers in metro-train format rather than destroying agricultural lands. The Sangha alleged that due to corruption, the afforestation work has completely failed in the State.
So, the State Government should privatize the afforestation work and after plantation the safeguarding duty of the plants should be assigned to retired Army personnel,
he suggested.