Daringbadi: Hundreds of villagers Saturday staged a roadblock at Simanbadi village in Kandhamal district alleging delay in road expansion work on a stretch of NH-59 connecting Gopalpur and Raipur areas here.
Seeking immediate intervention of the local administration to resolve the issue, the agitators brought vehicular movement on NH-59 to a halt and detained a number of vehicles of the contractor firm.
On being informed, Daringbadi police station IIC Kaushik Majhi rushed to the spot. He convinced the enraged villagers by promising them to take the matter up with the concerned authorities. With the intervention of Daringbadi police, the detained vehicles were also released by the agitators.
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Notably, local residents had earlier informed the IIC about the delay in road expansion work. Subsequently, the IIC had arranged a meeting between the project officer of the contractor firm Panchanan Das and local villagers of Simanbadi few months back.
The project officer had then suggested that an estimate of the work had been sent to NHAI authorities for approval and that the project will be completed soon after getting due approval.
PNN