Most of the inhabitants of the educational town of Burla and industrial town of Hirakud which came up during pre and post construction period of the Hirakud dam have no right over their land and still treated as “encroachers”.
After laying of foundation stone for construction of the Hirakud dam and subsequent commencement of work, some official workers settled down in the downstream of the Mahandi river at two opposite sides.
Gradually, many families migrated in search of work from different parts of Odisha and other States and got engaged in the Hirakud dam project and at last settled down in nearby areas of the two towns. Families from the submerged area of the dam those displaced also settled down there. Later, the then Chief Minister Biju Patnaik focused on growth of the two townships which took their turn with gradual establishment of power based industries like Hirakud Industrial Works, Hira Cable, Re-rolling Mill, Indal, Alind, Hindalco Power and its sister concerns and Government ITI at Hirakud side. On the other side, there are the VIMSAR, the NAC College, the Sambalpur University, VSSUT and offices of the Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL). Many employees and faculties came to Hirkaud and Burla and became extremely responsible and contributed towards growth of the State.
During the years, many State-owned institutions were established and have started rendering public services but surprisingly, no land was allotted in their favour for the last several decades. At the same time, due to population growth, Government land owned by the Irrigation and Power departments was encroached for dwelling purpose.
Despite several petitions to the Government to settle the land problem, the Revenue Department initiated a preliminary survey for land settlement but it stopped without citing any reason. The land settlement matter is a long pending demand here but lies unresolved for more than last six decades. Without right title or patta, the people here in particular suffer a lot in various fronts like procurement of various certificates required for education of their wards, opening of bank accounts, getting deprived of benefits under different welfare schemes and most importantly like Biju Pucca Ghar scheme.
During the visit of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on February 1 to Sambalpur, local MLA Dr Raseswari Panigrahi citing various problems faced by the residents of Hirakud and Burla submitted a memorandum requesting him to intervene in the matter for allotting land and providing Record of Rights (RoR) to these people by promulgating a Special Ordinance.