BHUBANESWAR: Even as the State government is contemplating to create a new department for western Odisha, the BJP on Tuesday demanded autonomy to the Western Odisha Development Council (WODC) and shifting of its headquarters to a suitable location.
Party MLAs, elected representatives of zilla parishads and panchayat samitis from western Odisha staged a demonstration near Raj Bhawan on their nine-point charter of demands including restructuring of the council with voting power for all MPs, MLAs and zilla parishad presidents.
A delegation of the party met Governor Ganeshi Lal and submitted a memorandum seeking his intervention to free WODC from the clutches of the ruling BJD. “The headquarters of the WODC is located in Bhubaneswar even 23 years after its formation in November 1998. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is not interested to relocate its headquarters to a suitable place in western Odisha as he wants to keep it under BJD’s control,” said State BJP general secretary Rabi Narayan Naik.
He said WODC is being run by two persons, the Chairman and the CEO, and there is no proportionate representation of MPs, MLAs and experts in the council. The objective to remove regional imbalance and focus on the backward blocks could not be achieved in the absence of a long-term plan and adequate budgetary support, said Sambalpur MLA Jaynarayan Mishra.
Quoting the CAG report he said, “The continuance of WODC in the present form raises questions of its efficacy to meet the objectives for which it was set up, in view of serious persistent shortcomings in its functioning since its formation.” The party demanded that the annual budgetary support to the council be increased to Rs 1,000 crore.