Nuapada: People displaced by the Lower Indra irrigation project at Tikhali under Khariar block in Nuapada district blocked the NH-353 Wednesday. They alleged that people ousted from the villages having completely submerged and partially submerged had not yet received financial assistance.
They raised various demands including laying a siege to the road near Bilenjora bus stand. Sub-Collector Taranisen Nayak, Komna tehsildar Purnananada Patel, SDPO Prashant Kumat Patnaik and IIC Jyoti Ranjan Gouda rushed to the agitation spot and held talks with the agitating oustees.
The officials assured them that the affected people would be identified and financial assistance would be provided to them accordingly. Due to the road blockade, traffic on the route came to a standstill for over nine hours.
In 2000, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had laid the foundation stone for the Lower Indra irrigation project at Tikhali. The project has been commissioned in 2021. It was alleged that though 20 years have passed since the project inception, many oustees have been running from pillar to post to get financial assistance.
Thus, they resorted to agitation. Due to the irrigation project, as many as 10 villages have been completely submerged while 21 villages have been partially submerged. Over 50,000 people have been affected by the project.
“As we have not received our assistance, we are unable to move to other places. Over 800 families are yet to receive compensation. But the government is yet to sanction their assistance,” they lamented.
They demanded that their other issues related to rehabilitation and resettlement be sorted out soon at the government level. Inhabitants of Konabira, and a few other villages such as Sonbahali and Budhachhapar, have been demanding payment of outstanding dues to compensate for their displacement from their lands.
The project can irrigate 29,900 hactares in Nuapada and Balangir districts. It was conceptualised in 2001 at an estimated cost of Rs 211 crore. The project was revised in 2003 at an escalated cost of Rs 521 crore, with ten villages identified to fall inside the reservoir and 21 villages facing partial submergence.
By 2018, the cost of the project stood in excess of Rs 1,750 crore.
PNN