It is unfortunate that having all eligible criteria, Rourkela was denied the venue for IIM, lamented Sachetan Nagarika Manch (SNM) general secretary PP Ray in a Press briefing on Thursday.He alleged that due to political conspiracy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and UnionMinister Dharmendra Pradhan, IIM was not set up in the steel city.
After 19 years Rourkela people elected Dilip Ray as BJP MlA, but he failed to ensure that the IIM comes up at Rourkela and the prestige of the local denizens remains intact. Similarly Jual Oram is the only BJP candidate who won from the Sundargarh Parliament seat and became a Cabinet Minister, but unfortunately, he could not fight properly for the interest of Rourkela. Rather, while an important Cabinet meeting was going on in New Delhi on Thursday to take a decision on IIM venue, instead of pleading in favour of Rourkela, Oram was absent in the meeting. So it could be well assessed how serious he was on the issue, Ray stated.
Ray disclosed that since violating all norms, Sambalpur was selected as the venue of IIM his organisation has decided to file a PIl in the Odisha High Court against the decision after the publication of notification by HRD Ministry. He further said his organisation is in favour of development of western Odisha but will not tolerate the negligence to Rourkela. Among others, SNM working president AP Biswal and other office bearers were present.It may be noted here that SNM was the first organisation of the State that had raised demand for IIM at Rourkela soon after the declaration of the Centre on July 10, 2014 for establishment of the institution.