‘Shed differences to demand special status for State’

BHUBANESWAR: Political parties must shed their differences to demand in unison for the special category status for Odisha in view of recommendations of parliament standing committee in this regard. The status would go a long way to address the issues of regional imbalances, stark poverty among dalits and adivasis, poor infrastructure in remote areas and lopsided development in the State, said the youth leaders at a seminar held on Tuesday here.

Chairing the seminar on ‘Three years of BJD Government in Odisha and UPA Government at Centre: A report card from Youth Perspective’ organised by the Janata Vikas Manch, Nageshwar Patnaik, a senior journalist said, “People across the society should not indulge in leg pulling and instead they should work unitedly for the development of the State.”

While presenting a status report on the Central and Odisha Government, Sai Prasan, a key functionary of JVM said the acute shortage of water is hampering the agricultural growth in the State leading to a large scale migration. The development is concentrated in the 100 km radius of the State capital. The west and south part along with the tribal dominated areas in the State are most backward. The SC and ST population is also living in a miserable condition. All these factors especially unemployment among youth is responsible for the rise of Naxalism in the State, he ended.

Taking a cue from the debate, communist leader Shivram said that both the UPA and BJD Government are following the neo-liberal policies of the imperialist forces which won’t lead to development, but destruction of the State.

Manoj Jena, a human rights defender, said that the human rights violations have gone up in the State due to the industrialisation process in the State. The Government is snatching the land of poor SCs and STs for setting up of the industry.

Sudarshan Chhotray, a documentary film maker, said that mindless mining is responsible for the climate change. There should be proper check on the mindless mining, he added. “Misuse of water is responsible for the pollution,” he said.

Among others, social scientist Chitta Ranjan Behera, Puroshotam Singh Thakur, Avinash Thakur, Abhishek Joshi, Dolmani Pradhan and Gobind Ballabh Dalai also spoke on this occasion.