Bhubaneswar, June 11: A day ahead of the BJD’s Swabhiman Samavesh in support of special category state in Delhi on Wednesday, Union minister Srikant Jena dared chief minister Naveen Patnaik for a public debate on the issue.
Shooting off a letter to Naveen, the minister of state for statistics and programme implementation today questioned why the ruling BJD had maintained a silence on the issue when it was a part of the NDA regime from 1998-2004.
“You had stated that the special category state status would be accorded within six months but it did not happen. Later, when the then Prime Minister (A.B. Vajpayee) and deputy Prime Minister (L.K. Advani) stated that special category status would not be given to Odisha, why did you and your party remain silent?”
In New Delhi, chief minister Naveen Patnaik today said one crore signatures would be presented to President Pranab Mukherjee tomorrow after the Swabhiman rally. “The state’s interest has been constantly ignored by various Union governments. We will continue our struggle if the Centre does not accept our demand for a special category status seriously,” Naveen said.
The chief minister also said though the Centre was getting huge revenue from the railway and mining sectors, Odisha was yet to get its due.
The Central minister reminded Naveen that under the existing guidelines, Odisha did not even qualify to for a special category status. “We are for a special category state. When the UPA is taking steps sincerely in this regard by changing the existing guidelines, burning effigies of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and that of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, calling an Odisha bandh and later taking people to Delhi for a rally hardly serves Odisha’s interests,” Jena said.
Deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia also pointed out Odisha’s drawbacks — lack of an international border — but later clarified that a committee had been formed to take a final call.
“The Union finance minister, P. Chidambaram, has already constituted the Raghuram Rajan committee to suggest changes to the existing guidelines for special category status,” Jena said in his letter.
He also accused the Naveen Patnaik government of handing over the entire mining resources to 60 influential families in the state. “If the mining resources had been properly developed, Odisha’s economy would have been looking up. The nexus of ministers with deposit collection companies has shocked everyone,” he said, raking up the issue that the state was giving 25 kg of rice for each BPL family on subsidy while it received 35 kg from the Centre.
Jena said the state had benefited during the UPA regime as institutes of national repute like IIT, AIIMS and NISER had been established here besides, three medical colleges — one at Talcher by Mahanadi Coal Filed Limited, one at Bhubaneswar by ESIC and another at Sundergarh by NTPC.
Coming to the rescue of the state Congress, Jena said an oil refinery has been set up in Paradip for Rs 35,000 crore, while a fertiliser plant would be revived in Talcher. A petro-chemical complex was also coming up at Paradip, he said, touching upon Nalco’s expansion and Rourkela Steel plant.
Jena reminded Naveen that during the NDA regime, the fertiliser plant had been shut down and the Paradip Phosphate Limited was sold at a throwaway price.
Jena said that during NDA regime Odisha had got nothing more than five to six traffic posts, “which could be seen in Bhubaneswar”. “Odisha had hoped to get a lot of support after the super cyclone of 1999, but did not get anything.”
Jena also said that when he was a minister in the United Front government, work was taken up for the Haridaspur-Paradip, Talcher-Duburi and Talcher-Sambalpur railway lines. “The lower Suktel project was also sanctioned and the city airport was named after Biju Patnaik,” he said.
“During the debate (with Naveen), I will also stress how as a Union tourism minister, I had announced four tourist circuits and setting up of the Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management,” he said.
