The Orissa Assembly. Telegraph file picture

Bhubaneswar, June 2: The Opposition today created a furore in the Assembly over the government’s alleged failure in coming out with an updated list of below poverty line (BPL) families.

Smarting from yesterday’s embarrassing incident over the starvation case in Nuapara district, the Congress today cornered ruling BJD-BJP over its “failure” in preparing a BPL list though it had committed to come out with such a list in 2000 when it rode to power.

The Opposition members stormed the well of the House raising slogans like “Naveen Patnaik is the enemy of poor” accusing the government of misleading the House over publication of the BPL list.

Congress member Nalinikanta Mohanty alleged that the BPL list had not been updated since 1997 resulting in lakhs of poor — who could have been part of the BPL list — being deprived of the benefits.

Mohanty said that in the last 10 years, the number of BPL families have grown substantially though the government list is “hopelessly outdated”. “These families could have been given houses under the Indira Awas Yojana. The Assembly is not someone’s playground that they make a commitment and forget all about it. This government is enemy of the poor,” he said.

Echoing him, Opposition member Arun Dey said Orissa has become the “number one state as far as poverty was concerned”. “By failing to publish an updated BPL list, the government has showed that it does not care about the poor,” said Dey, demanding all correspondence between the state and the Centre over BPL list be submitted in the House.

Former panchayati raj minister and senior BJD legislator Damodar Rout, who in 2000 had announced that the BPL list would be updated, clarified that the government was not at fault. “We were about to publish the new list when the Supreme Court stayed it,” he said.

Later, Speaker Maheswar Mohanty directed panchayati raj minister Raghunath Mohanty to furnish full details on the delay in publication of the list by June 6.

Water panel

The state government said a high-powered technical committee is being formed to oversee equitable water distribution from the Hirakud dam to industries and farmers.

At the Assembly, steel and mines minister Padmanav Behera said that the government would not do anything to hamper the interests of farmers or farming. “Agriculture will get first priority as far as water from Hirakud is concerned,” Behera said, replying on behalf of the water resources department.

In 1990, Behera said, a survey had estimated that about 9 per cent of the water in the reservoir could be given to industries. “The supply to industries have been within this limit so far.”

Irrigation for kharif and rabi crops would not be affected if water is supplied to industries, Behera said. “If electricity generation comes down during non-monsoon months, it can always be compensated by higher generation.”