BHUBANESWAR: Stating that the flow in the downstream of river Mahanadi has dipped alarmingly on account of unilateral action of construction activities undertaken by Chhattisgarh, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday requested the standing committee of the Inter-State Council to take urgent action to stop this and constitute a tribunal without further delay to address the problem.
Addressing the 12th meeting of the standing committee at New Delhi presided by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, the Chief Minister expressed serious concern over the issue and said Odisha is hugely dependent on the water of Mahanadi river.He also urged that the Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh should be discontinued as it will impact a large number of people in the tribal district of Malkangiri.
Raising the issue of minimum support price (MSP) on paddy, the Chief Minister said the price fixed at `1,550 per quintal by the Centre is not commensurate with the rising cost of inputs. The non-remunerative MSP acts as a deterrent to doubling farmers’ income, he said and urged upon the standing committee to take up the matter with the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and consider the proposal of the Odisha Government to fix the price at `2,930 per quintal in the interest of the farmers.
Stating that Left wing extremism poses biggest threat to the internal security, the Chief Minister said there should be equitable distribution and deployment of Central forces, funds and logistic support. He demanded that the Centre should not insist on reimbursement of the cost of deployment of Central forces in the LWE affected States.
He requested the Union Home Minister to deploy at least two battalions of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) in Odisha at the earliest to address the asymmetric deployment along the Chhattisgarh border. Naveen demanded that the royalty on coal which was due for revision in April, 2015 should be enhanced at the earliest. He demanded 60 per cent of the clean environment cess should be earmarked for the coal bearing States which have to bear the cost of environmental degeneration and rehabilitation.
Referring to the recommendation of Punchhi Commission for higher Central transfer for backward States for improving their physical and human infrastructure, Naveen demanded Odisha should have the same sharing pattern in Centrally sponsored schemes at par with North-Eastern and Himalayan States as it has high percentage of people below poverty line and belonging to Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.