ROURKELA: A section of the BJP on Tuesday staged dharna in front of the office of the Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) holding the district administration responsible for the diarrhoea outbreak and demanded Rs 20 lakh compensation each for the family of the victims.
Led by party leaders of Rourkela and RN Pali Assembly constituencies, Nihar Ray and JB Behera respectively, the protesters reportedly tried to forcibly enter the RMC office but were prevented by police. Later, they handed over a memorandum addressed to the chief secretary through the RMC commissioner and Rourkela ADM Subhankar Mohapatra.
Ray alleged the official diarrhoea death toll to be 17 instead of nine and said it was due to contaminated water supplied by the WATCO. “The government cannot hide the truth and it will soon come out,” he added.
Alleging a scam in the execution of piped water supply networks, Ray claimed inferior quality pipe and materials used by WATCO led to leakage and breakage of pipes at many places, which subsequently caused the outbreak.
He demanded compensation of Rs 20 lakh to each of the 17 bereaved families and said it was grave negligence on the part of the Sundargarh district administration, RMC and WATCO that such a devastating outbreak was allowed to happen. “The government claim of providing safe and clean drinking water has proved to be a farce,” he rued.
Rift in the BJP also came to the fore with Panposh organisational district president of BJP Latika Patnaik claiming the protest was held without consulting her. “The BJP had already held a similar protest over diarrhoea outbreak earlier,” she added.