BJP blasts BJD govt, says flood ‘man-made’
BHUBANESWAR: A week after the flood in the Mahanadi river system caused extensive damage to lives, properties and Kharif crops in 13 coastal districts, the BJP on Sunday blasted the State government for its failure in managing the situation.
Dubbing the flood as ‘man-made’, State BJP general secretary Prithviraj Harichandan asked the BJD government to apologise to the people of the State for its failure to bring a permanent solution to the recurring disaster even after staying in power for more than two decades.
“The State government had prior information about the impending flood in view of the IMD forecast of very heavy rain on the upper basin of Mahanadi including Chhattisgarh. It is now trying to escape by shifting blame to the neighbouring state for the flood,” Harichandan told a media conference here.
The government must explain to the people what prevented it from releasing water at Hirakud dam well in advance despite knowing the live storage position in the reservoirs of Chhattisgarh as shared by the Central Water Commission, he said.
“The State government is solely responsible for this flood which could have been easily tackled had there been better coordination with Chhattisgarh,” Harichandan said. The BJD government has betrayed the people of the State in the last 22 years by neither constructing a barrage on Mahanadi, the lifeline of Odisha, nor taking permanent floodproofing measures.
“This inefficient government is only blaming the neighbouring states over inter-state water sharing while Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh are constructing a number of barrages over Mahanadi and Godavari rivers respectively. It has miserably failed both in water conservation and flood management,” he said.
A large number of breaches in the river and saline embankments even in a moderate flood are proof enough that the ruling party has been looting hundred of crores allocated for repair and maintenance of the embankments.
Claiming that the government was waiting for a flood to happen as this will give another opportunity to loot the public exchequer through party contractors, Harichandan said the administration has failed to deliver cooked or dry food to the flood-affected people.