Balangir: The District Action Committee fighting for a separate Titilagarh has resolved to take the fight to its logical end.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the action committee in Titilagarh on Monday evening.

Members of organisations cutting across part lines met to decide on the future course of action.

Speculation is rife that the state government had already decided to grant district status for Titilagarh and the formal announcement is expected on March 5, the birth anniversary of former chief minister Biju Patnaik.

Justifying the decision of the committee, convener Sanjaya Behera said the state government had always overlooked their demand for a separate district.

"Our demand was overlooked in 1993 when the then chief minister Biju Patnaik created 17 more districts to increase the count from 13 to 30. Strangely, Titilagarh was not considered though it had all the feasibility to become a district. Since then we have been agitating to demand a separate district," he said.

Behera said with five blocks out of the 14 in the district, 110 gram panchayats out of the 296, two out of the four urban bodies and a population in excess of five lakh, Titilagarh sub-division qualified to become a district.

"We will intensify the agitation after the first week of March and this time we will take the fight to its logical end," he said.

Senior lawyer Radhakanta Padhi of Titilagarh citizen committee said since the state government had been taking up many development projects in the region, one expects it would not let down the people here.

"We hope the state government will respond positively to the demand of district status for Titilagarh," Padhi said.

Upendra Bag, secretary of Kumuda Pahad Surakshya Samiti, said Titilagarh needed to be given district status.

"It is time Titilagarh was granted the status of a district. Development of Titilagarh was possible only when it became a district," Bag said.