Rourkela: The dwellers of the Hilltop Busti laid a siege to the official residence of Raghunathpalli MLA Subrat Tarai Thursday while demonstrating against the RSP’s order for the eviction of the slum’s residents. Over a hundred slum dwellers staged a sit-in in front of the house of MLA Subrat Tarai and they were in no mood to budge from there as long as their demand was not met.
However, they left the place when the report was being filed saying that they would come back later. “We are not going to go away from here until and unless our demand is met. We want alternate pieces of land to set up our households. We have been staying there for more than 30 years,” said one Sumati Nag, a resident of the slum. The problem arose when RSP served them with the eviction notice acting on a proposal to widen the road in front of the Hilltop Busti. The proposal for widening of the road has cropped up in view of the massive park that is in the final phase of completion at Koelnagar. The park is being set up at a cost of over Rs 32 crore on 34 acre land on the bank of Koel river. This is part of the Smart City project. The dwellers had earlier met Labour Minister and Rourkela MLA Sarada Nayak. Sources close to Nayak informed that after listening to them patiently he declined to interfere in the affair as it belonged to Tarai’s constituency.
However, he assured them that he would look into it. Meanwhile, when asked about the issue, Tarai reportedly said, “What can I do? RSP has served the notice for its land.”