Sambalpur, Oct. 6: BJD workers today rounded up officials of the BSNL after a technical snag caused problems during the inauguration of water projects by chief minister Naveen Patnaik through video conferencing.

Local MLA Raseswari Panigrahi had to inaugurate and lay the foundation for the projects on behalf of the chief minister at the Phed ground.

However, the technical snag caused tension among the BJD workers, who alleged that the problem was "intentional".

BJD worker Santanu Barpanda said: "They have done it deliberately to spoil the programme of the state government. The BSNL stands for BJP Sanchar Nigam Limited now." Similar sentiments were expressed by the other BJD workers, who were present there.

However, sub-divisional officer of the BSNL D. Munda said: "The BSNL is not responsible for the problem. We were facing link problem. Such situation occurred due to the technical snag in the modem. A modem functions in certain temperature. Because of the high temperature today, the modem stopped functioning."

The district e-governance manager, Nitesh Khetri, too, said that the problem arose due to link failure. "We had replaced modem. But despite replacement of modem, the inauguration could not take place through video conferencing because of link failure," he said.

The chief minister was supposed to inaugurate four urban water supply projects through videoconferencing. Besides, foundation stones for five projects were to be laid on this occasion.

At the state secretariat in Bhubaneswar, the chief minister today inaugurated 100 urban piped water projects online and laid foundation stones for another 100 such projects.

Besides, he also launched smart water information management systems in Bhubaneswar.