Bhubaneswar, Aug. 27: The issues of coal block allotment and shortage of fertilisers are likely to take centre stage in the ensuing monsoon session of the Assembly, commencing tomorrow.
The state government and the Centre have been at loggerheads over the twin issues. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today stated in Parliament that Odisha and four other states had opposed the coal block auction.
“While the CAG castigated the central government on coal block allocation, it has not said anything against Odisha,” said chief minister Naveen Patnaik while reacting to the Prime Minister’s statement. “Odisha has always demanded for auction route for coal and other minerals,” he said.
Naveen was responding to Union minister Srikant Jena’s allegation that the Naveen Patnaik government had opposed the move for competitive bidding for allotment of coal blocks.
Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Bhupinder Singh, who presided over the meeting of Congress MLAs here, today said the chief minister had adopted “double standards”. While Naveen had vehemently opposed the competitive bidding system in 2005, he wrote to the Centre in 2011, favouring open auction, said Singh.
“We will raise the issue in the Assembly and expose the doublespeak of the chief minister,” he said.
The Opposition leader also said failure of the state government in protecting the farmers’ interest by distributing fertiliser in time and taking action against hoarders would also be discussed in the House.
While Naveen had recently written to the Prime Minister, urging for immediate release of one lakh metric tonne of urea to the state, Jena, Union minister of state for chemicals and fertiliser, had claimed that sufficient quantities of all fertilisers were available here, but steps were not being taken to distribute it to the farmers.
Sensing that the issue would be raised in the Assembly, state’s agriculture minister Debi Prasad Mishra today blamed the Centre for the fertiliser scarcity in the state. “The Centre had committed to provide 7.86 lakh metric tonnes of fertilisers to Odisha for the current kharif season. However, it has so far provided only 4.06 lakh metric tonnes, resulting in a shortfall,” he said.
Alleging that Jena was “misleading the farmers”, Mishra asked the Union minister to refrain from “politics as far farmer’s interest is concerned”.
The chief minister, who presided over the BJD legislature party meeting in the evening, said: “Our members will take up the issue of central neglect of Odisha.”
The ruling party would focus on the neglect of Odisha in respect of railways and the Polavaram irrigation project, said parliamentary affairs minister Kalpataru Das.