Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government said Wednesday that border disputes with neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal will be resolved soon. In the process, it admitted that border disputes do exist between Odisha and some of its neighbouring districts.
The topic of border disputes came up during the Winter Session of the Odisha Assembly. Minister of State for Revenue, Sudam Charan Marandi while answering to the debate on an Opposition-sponsored adjournment motion acknowledged that there is a border dispute between Odisha and Andhra Pradesh over 21 villages in Koraput district. He told the House that the Odisha government is providing all facilities to those villages. However, the Andhra Pradesh government is trying to impose its authority on those villages.
Marandi informed that the Koraput district collector and Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC), Southern division is taking steps to solve the dispute.
The minister also said that a committee has been formed to resolve the border disputes with West Bengal over nine villages in Balasore district. He said that he is hoping that the matter will be sorted out amicably.
Deputy Leader of Opposition Bishnu Charan Sethi suggested to the government to constitute an all party committee to handle the border row issue. He also sought the intervention of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to solve the dispute.
Chief Whip of the Opposition, Mohan Charan Majhi however, alleged that as the Odisha government is not undertaking development works in these villages, the locals themselves are in favour of going over to the neighbouring states.
Congress MLAs walked out of the house in the protest as they were not given adequate time to participate in the debate.
PNN