Balangir, Jan. 24: District Action Committee of Titilagarh has resolved to observe parallel Republic Day celebration on the DAV College ground on January 26.
The action committee, which has been agitating for district status for Titilagarh, has decided that convener of the district action committee Kishore Chandra Panda will hoist the Tricolour.
Sources in the action committee said that they had requested the school and college authorities of the town to send their NCC, scout, guide and civil groups to join the parallel celebrations and skip the official programme to be held at the Government Boys’ High School ground.
Justifying the decision of the committee, Panda said that 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 other districts. Titilagarh was not considered though it has all the feasibility to become a district. Since then we have been agitating regularly to press for the demand of a separate district,” he said.
Panda said Titilagarh sub-division qualified for a district as it had five blocks, 110 gram panchayats, two urban bodies and a population in excess of five lakh.
Panda also said that the earlier decision of the action committee to disrupt functioning of government offices would remain in force.
“A delegate of the action committee will meet chief minister Naveen Patnaik to press for the demand of Titilagarh district in the last week of this month. Till then we will not allow the government offices to function. We have urged the people to boycott the official Republic Day celebration and join the committee’s parallel programme in the greater interest of Titilagarh,” Panda added.
Joint convener of the committee Manoj Hati said that the committee had requested the authorities of all schools and colleges of the town to send their students to the parallel celebration at DAV College ground. Hati said: “We have requested the authorities of the school and colleges to our event.”
In the past, people of Titilagarh had boycotted the civic poll twice demanding district status.
