Rourkela activist again treks to BBSR

Rourkela’s young activist Muktikanta Biswal has started his trekking from Rourkela to Bhubaneswar on Wednesday to meet and apprise Chief Minister Naveen Pattanaik about certain important projects what the latter had committed but not yet fulfilled.

Speaking the reason behind his walk to Bhubaneswar, Biswal says 9 years back the CM had laid foundation stone for Koel barrage and a ring road on the bank of the Koel river but the project works have not yet started. Similarly, the CM had committed long back to provide facilities in Rourkela Government Hospital that are available in the Capital Hospital, Bhubaneswar. But so far not a single doctor posted in the departments of Ventilator, Nephrology, Neurology and Cardiology etc. and in other departments more than 40% doctor posts are lying vacant for years together. This is reason, many patients are forced to shift to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack for better treatment or many poor patients are dying due to poor treatment facility at the RGH. Nuagaon block in Sundargarh has always been on the forefront of vegetable production. But official apathy, absence of cold storage facility and market linkage have forced farmers to shy away from farming. In 2013-14, a mini-cold storage of 30 metric tons capacity, four pack houses for grading, sorting and packaging of vegetables and a special refrigeration van were given by Panposh ITDA to the farmers. However, all these facilities are lying unutilised in Nuagaon and Bisra blocks. Both the blocks have fertile land and conducive environment for the cultivation of vegetables and other horticulture crops. Despite a bumper harvest, the farmers fail to get a decent price for their produce since vegetables are perishable and they incur losses due to absence of cold storages in the block. Even the farmers are forced for distress sale, he told.

Though a couple of years back during the visit of CM it was committed for setting up cold storages but the commitment remains in cold