Former Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai has written a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, seeking his intervention for a massive plantation programme to curb the rising pollution level in Kalinganagar industrial area and Sukinda chrome valley in Jajpur district. Kalinganagar and Sukinda are now considered the most environmentally polluted region in the country. The industrialists as well as the administration have turned a deaf ear to curb such unabated rising pollution posing a serious threat to the life and property of the people. The air, water, sound and above all the environment have been polluted due to expansion of industrial activities at Kalinganagar and mining activities in the Sukinda valley.
The people are suffering from diseases like TB, jaundice, cancer, ENT problem, heart and kidney ailments. There is no super specialty hospital in the area for treatment of these categories of patients. Specialised and dedicated doctors with better equipment and sufficient medicines are not being provided in the hospitals at Duburi PHC, Sukinda CHC, Danagadi CHC, Jakhapur PHC, Rabana PHC and Jajpur Road Area Hospital, Ghadai mentioned.
There is acute shortage of water in the locality specially the drinking water. Water of Ganda Nala at Kalinga Nagar and Damsala Nala in the Sukinda, besides of several ponds and rivers, has dried up. The massive plantation which is an immediate solution to the problem has not been tried. The hue and cry of the people, especially the tribals, is not reaching the ear of the administration, he lamented.
Ghadai said an RPDAC meeting held after three years under the chairmanship of the RDC last time, did not take up the plantation issue and urged that concerted efforts should be made by the departments of Industry, Forest and Environment, Revenue and Panchayatiraj for undertaking the massive plantation programme and distribution of seedlings on war footing before the monsoon under the strict coordination and supervision by the district Collector and the Divisional Forest Officer.