ROURKELA: Call it apathy or faulty decision of the State government, residents of Hamirpur, Tumkele and Luakera in Rourkela, continue to be deprived of basic amenities and voting rights in civic body polls for 27 years now.
Reason, their areas are considered ‘no man’s land’ which neither come under rural nor urban administration.
The residents, however, continue to exercise their franchise during Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. Before 1995, the said areas, with more than 15,000 residents who pay taxes for private land, used to be under the jurisdiction of the Notified Area Council (Steel Township).
Later, Rourkela Industrial Township (RIT) was formed and these units slided under the exclusive territorial jurisdiction of the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) of SAIL.
“These units are located on private and government land but they are neither governed by the Rourkela Urban Local Body (ULB) nor any gram panchayat,” said Hamirpur Unnayan Parishad (HUP) president Suman Dutta.
Following a PIL filed in Orissa High Court in December, 2013 seeking a direction to delist slum pockets from territorial limits of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Department had dropped favourable hints in this regard.
The petitioners, Niranjan Das, SK Patra and AK Patnaik had stated that since several slum pockets were located in and around the RSP and its captive township, and RSP authorities had failed to provide basic civic amenities to the people, the areas should be included in the proposed Corporation.
But Sundargarh district administration, a year ago, had dealt a blow to them describing Hamirpur, Tumkela and Luakera as ‘detached’ areas and their merger with RMC was not possible. RN Pali MLA from BJD Subrat Patnaik said that these three pockets come under Kuanrmunda tehsil and he has suggested the government to either merge them with the RMC or any gram panchayat.