Peeved over the inordinate delay in the upward revision of the mining royalty which is long overdue, the ruling BJD members on Saturday sought to bring a censure motion against the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre.
However, the opposition BJP refused to support the censure motion in order to prevent the ruling BJD to take political advantage as it was doing in case of a resolution on special category status. During Zero Hour countering the attack of the opposition Congress which raised the chit fund scam alleging nexus between the Chit fund companies and Ministers and ruling party MlAs and
leaders, the BJD raised the Central neglect to Odisha, particularly in case of hiking the mining royalty. Raising the issue, Deputy Government Chief Whip Sanjaya Das Burma slammed the Union Government for the delay in upward revision of mining royalty for mineral rich States, including Odisha. He said that a motion should be passed in the House condemning the UPA Government for its dilatory tactics.
Das Burma said that due to the delay in revision, Odisha had been sustaining a loss of Rs 5 crore every day. “The State has so far sustained a huge loss to the tune of Rs 2,500 crore due to non-revision of mineral royalty,” he said. Stating that the revision of mineral royalty was normally being done in every three years and the revision was last done in August, 2009, Das Burma said that the upward revision of royalty was due since August, 2012.
Despite the approval of Finance Ministry and Panning Commission, the Union Government was sitting over the issue there by depriving the mineral rich States their dues, he said. Das Burma was supported by his collegues Prafulla Chandra Ghadai, Padeep Maharathy, Amar Prasad Satapathy, Smir Ranjan Das and Ananata Das. However, the issue of unanimous censure motion did not go down well with the BJP. BJP State president KV Singh Deo vehemently opposed the move.
The ruling BJD should refrain from taking unilateral political advantage of unanimous resolutions in the name of development of the State, he cautioned.