BHUBANESWAR: BJD's Khandapada MLA Soumya Ranjan Patnaik on Tuesday came down heavily on ministers for misleading the Assembly. Flagging what he called erroneous information being given to the Assembly, Patnaik drew attention of Speaker Bikram Keshari Arukha to the reply of Excise department to a question he raised on July 2.
The Khandapada MLA had sought to know from the Excise Minister about steps taken by the State government to rein in the rising trend of alcohol consumption in the State which is higher than the national average.
In a written reply, the department said that overall percentage of alcohol consumption in Odisha by both men and women declined compared to the figure in National Family Health Survey (NFHS) in 2015-16.
As per NFHS-4, the percentage of male tipplers in Odisha was 39.3 against the national average of 29.2 per cent. The survey conducted in 2019-21 showed alcohol consumption has dipped to 28.8 per cent in Odisha while it was 18.7 per cent at the national level.
However, during the same period, alcohol consumption among women grew from 1.3 per cent to 4.3 per cent in Odisha while the rate doubled at the national level from 1.2 per cent to 2.4 per cent. Patnaik requested the Speaker to explain accuracy of the reply by the department.
Even if the percentage of men tipplers as per the latest survey is less than that of the NFHS-4 survey, the State’s figure is ten per cent higher than the national average. Raising the issue during zero hour, Patnaik said that he failed to understand who is telling the truth, the questioners or the officers preparing the answers.
The legislator termed it dominance of bureaucrats in the administration and told reporters outside the Assembly that this is not good for democracy. BJD legislator from Anandpur, Bhagirathi Sethi slammed Health Minister Naba Kishore Das over impoverished state of health affairs in Keonjhar.
Concerned over acute shortage of doctors and paramedic staff in his district, Sethi said that peons are administering injection to patients. An exasperated Sethi said that talking to minister Naba Das is akin to slapping yourself.