MALKANGIRI: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday dedicated the much-awaited 910-meter Gurupriya bridge, here to the people amid tight security. Inaugurating the bridge, the Chief Minister said it was his dream project and now, the cut-off becomes mainstream. The bridge will bring significant development to the region. “I feel it is a historic day for Odisha and the entire nation. Now, people residing in Chitrakonda will no longer be called as a cut-off region as they have joined the mainstream.”
The Chief Minister also called upon the extremists to join the mainstream for development of the region. He said, “I appeal to Left-wing extremists in the region to give up violence and embrace the progress that the bridge will bring to the region.”
The bridge constructed at a cost of over Rs 187 crore will link 151 villages of 10 panchayats that have been cut off for nearly six decades after construction of the major irrigation project with the mainland. He announced a special package of Rs 100 crore for all-round development of the people of the area. The special package includes the development of pisciculture, road network, electricity connection, provision of drinking water, the opening of four health sub-centres and construction of a bridge at Manyamkonda.
After the inauguration, Naveen walked on the bridge while waiving at 4000 people gathered at both sides of the bridge and interacted with the villagers at Janbai, situated close to the bridge. He paid homage to security personnel who sacrificed their lives during construction of the bridge and visited the BSF camp at the bridge site where he spent about 20 minutes.
The Chief Minister accompanied by his Private Secretary V Karthikeyan Pandian flew to the bridge site and landed at the BSF helipad at around 11.10 am. SC and ST Development Minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi, Sports and Youth Services Minister Chandra Sarathi Behera, Chitrakonda MLA Dambru Sisa, Collector Manish Agarwal, IG (Intelligence) RK Sharma, IG (Operation) RP Koche, SP Jagmohan Meena, BSF IG Aswini Kumar Singh and BSF DIG (Intelligence) Sukumar Sarangi were present there. At least six platoons of security forces including BSF personnel were deployed near the site to avoid any untoward incident in the wake of Congress’ call for Chitrakonda bandh on Thursday.
Later, the Chief Minister inaugurated newly constructed seven-story District Headquarters Hospital (DHH) building and joined ‘Ama Gaon, Ama Bikash’ programme at Sports Stadium where he announced a package of Rs 100 crore for development of the erstwhile cut-off region. He said, “Now, the cut-off region will be known as ‘Swabhiman Anchala’ (self-esteemed area). Development of Malkangiri has always on the agenda of the Government and it would be further accelerated.”