Bhubaneswar 
Saluja backs Suktel demand as
stir enters fourth day
Saluja backs Suktel demand as
stir enters fourth day
SUNDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2012 16:45
PNS | BALANGIR
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The agitation
demanding execution of the Lower Suktel Irrigation Project here entered the
fourth day on Saturday with Kantabanji Congress MLA Santosh Singh Saluja along
with his supporters joining the stir. Saluja accompanied by Balangir
District Congress Committee president Bhagaban Bagarti and president of Indian
Youth Congress Balangir Lok Sabha seat Akash Mishra and district Mahila
Congress president Renuka Patra sat on dharna before the Collectorate extending
his full support to the agitation.
“We had staged a
dharna beneath the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the State Assembly premises and
moved an adjournment motion on the Lower Suktel issue in the legislature. The
Assembly Speaker sent a message to us that the Chief Minister would make a
statement on the issue in the House. However, it was another Minister,
Raghunath Mohanty, who made a statement that the Lower Suktel project work
would start from September 27. But more than two and a half months has elapsed
in the meanwhile and the work has not yet begun.” Saluja told mediapersons.
He said the project
which was conceived in 2000 was supposed to have been completed by 2004. A
total of 29 villages would be affected out of which two villages would be
submerged fully and the rest 27 would be submerged partially. So far, the
Government provided compensation of Rs 369 crore in nine partially-submerged
villages, but the compensation is yet to be paid in the remaining 20
villages. The total compensation amounts to `800 crore, but the Government
has made a much less provision while the deadline for payment of completion
March 31, 2013. Moreover, the projected-affected people have to be compensated
as per the Relief and Rehabilitation Policy of 2002, which would entail more
expenditure. In such a background, how the project could be implemented, Saluja
wondered.
He said the
contradictory information on the project given by the Government is puzzling.
In one statement, the Minister informed that a total of 29,300 hectares of land
would be irrigated while another statement said the total land to be irrigated
would be more than 31,000 hectares. How this would be possible without
increasing the height of dam or the length of reservoir, Saluja asked further.
“Whenever I raised
this issue, they had no answer. As I am raising this issue, I was suspended
from the Assembly undemocratically,” Saluja rued. He pointed out that the
Government had promised to provide irrigation to 35 per cent acres of land in
each block in the State. In Balangir district, except Agalpur, no other block
has irrigation for more than 4 per cent to 5 per cent of land.
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