BHUBANESWAR: Faced with an Opposition onslaught over power situation in the state, the BJD on Wednesday staged a dharna in front of Raj Bhavan here protesting the rise in the price of cooking gas and essential commodities.
A party delegation submitted a memorandum to Governor Ganeshi Lal and demanded that the price of LPG should be brought down to the previous level when it was affordable and reasonable for the common people.Stating that the party stands for the mothers and sisters of Odisha, the BJD said its stand is to protect the common man from adverse impact of rising cooking gas price.
The BJD demanded that the Centre should refund the excess money collected from the hike and transfer it through DBT to the women beneficiaries of cooking gas or provide free gas cylinders to them. The price of one domestic cylinder (14.2 kg) which was Rs 410 in March, 2014 has gone up to Rs 1,130 now, it added.
Alleging that lakhs of beneficiaries from Odisha have not been able to refill the gas and returned to using firewood, the memorandum said that this has exposed how the Ujjwala Yojana has failed in the state. “While the Centre claims that LPG coverage is the country is almost 98 per cent, the latest National Family Health Survey states that there has been only 20 per cent increase in overall usage of clean cooking fuel,” it added.The BJD said though it has raised issue continuously, the Centre is not bothered.