Expressing happiness over the State Government’s decision to reserve 20 per cent of developed land earmarked for residential purpose in the city development plan for houses for slum dwellers and lower economic groups, MlAs from both ruling BJD and opposition Congress have urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik not to rehabilitate Bangladeshi infiltrators in cities under the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) at any cost.
In a letter to Patnaik, MlAs Amar Prasad Satpathy, Santosh Singh Saluja, Nabin Nanda, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Prafulla Mallick and many others have urged him not to entertain the encroachers in rehabilitating them under the RAY or other housing schemes of the Government.
The letter further stated that since a large number of Bangladeshi infiltrators are staying in Bhubaneswar, Puri, Kendrapada and Angul and are engaged in various antisocial activities, they should not be provided with Aadhaar cards, besides deleting their names from voter identity cards if any. Strong measures should be undertaken to evacuate these infiltrators with immediate effect, the MlAs urged. Notably, on December 6, 2010, the Chief Minister while answering a query of Congress MlA Santosh Singh Saluja had informed the Assembly that as many as 10,846 Bangladeshi infiltrators are residing in Odisha.