BARGARH:Even as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced to spend Rs 1,500 crore to facilitate Ong Medium Irrigation Project to augment irrigation in the district, opposition to the project has resurfaced after more than two and a half years. With the project threatening to displace a large number of people, the protestors, under the banner of ‘Ong Nadi Bandha Pratirodh Committee,’ have resumed their opposition to the project even though drought has been a frequent visitor to Padampur sub-division.
Hundreds of people of Pujaripali area in Paikmal block of Padampur sub-division in the district, under the banner of ‘Ong Nadi Bandha Pratirodh Committee,’ posted more than 1,500 individual post cards addressed to President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday urging him to either direct the project to be shelved or give them permission for euthanasia. It is said that more than 30,000 such letters will be posted to the President in the next 10 days.
Maintaining that the project would displace 30,000 people, the letter speaks about the plight of displaced by other such projects. Preferring to die rather than getting displaced and living a wretched life, they have pleaded for euthanasia. A delegation of the ‘Ong Nadi Bandha Pratirodh Committee’ visited Bargarh town on Saturday and posted the letters at Bargarh Head Post Office.
A member of the delegation, Balakrushna Naik, said at least 30,000 people comprising 6,228 families of 32 villages in Paikmal Block would be displaced if the project is commissioned. He said while 11 villages will be completely submerged, 21 villages would be partially submerged and 3,912.67 hectares of rayati land, 212.35 hectares of forest land and 974.98 hectares of other types of land will be submerged.
The 11 villages which will be submerged include Chardapali, Jagdalpur, Saraikela, Lakhmara, Changria, Lahandipur, Luhurakot, Mahulpali, Nuapada, Sambalpuri and Suklipahad. This apart, 21 villages, including Pujharipali, Kulanti, Dhumabhata, Ghensra, Badikata, Manipur, Mohanpali, Chiroli in Odisha besides villages of Bhalukana, Pajhrapali, Beldihi and Jatakanha in Chhattisgarh will be partly affected.
Ong Irrigation Project is a Major Irrigation Project which will be located near village Pujharipali, 15 km from Padamapur. This project envisages construction of 7.48 km-long earth dam with spillway across river Ong with total catchment area of 2,321 sq km, of which 1,282 sq.km lies in Odisha and 1,039 sq km in Chhattisgarh. The project, after completion, will extend irrigation facility to an area of 30,000 hectares in the drought-prone area of Padmapur, Sohela, Bijepur and Gaisilat blocks of Padampur in Bargarh district and Agalpur block of Balangir district.
The project has received stage-I forest clearance from Ministry of Environment and Forest in February, 2003 and public hearing was conducted both in Odisha and Chhattisgarh. Although the affected people of the project have repeatedly been demanding construction of small check dams along river Ong to prevent submergence and displacement which will rob the forest dependent communities of their livelihood, the State Government is all set to begin work on the project.
Interestingly, the foundation stone for the project has been laid four times between 1945 and 1985 at two different places. In 1945, the Britishers had laid the foundation for the project at Chiroli, while in 1965, the then Governor of Odisha A N Khosla repeated the honour at Chiroli.The then chief minister Biju Patnaik had also laid the foundation stone for the project at Chiroli during his first stint as the CM. Later, the foundation was laid by then chief minister J B Patnaik at Pujharipali in 1985. But the project never took off.