BJD stages demo against RSP for backing out of ‘Aahaar

Sambad English Bureau Published On : Mar 28, 2015 at 11:01 PM

Reported by Malay Ray
Rourkela, Mar 28:

A day after BJD members created a rucksus inside the Odisha Assembly portesting the decsion of the Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) to back out of the Odisha government’s ‘Aahaar’ scheme, hundreds of BJD cadres staged a demonstration in front of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) in protest against its decision to back out of the sscheme after signign a MoU with the government.

Odisha Joint Entrance Examination-2024 to be held from May 6; Check schedule

Major fire breaks out in Excise office in Odisha’s Keonjhar, valuable assets gutted

The RSP management has, however, denied the allegation of backing out from the ‘Aahaar’ scheme. “We have not backed out from the Ahara programme.” said a senior RSP official.

The protesters also staged a road blockade for a few hours at the busy Ring Road area leaving SAIL Chairman CS Verma, here to oversee preparations for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit on Wednesday, stranded for about 15 minutes.

Sources said the RSP management, as a part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR), had signed a MoU with state government recently for providing support to ‘Aahaar’ scheme recently announced by the state government. Accordingly, preparations had also had started to inaugurate the programme in Rourkela on April 1 by Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also likely to visit Rourkela on the same day to inaugurate the modernization and expansion unit of RSP, as a protocol measure Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik will also be present on the occasion. The state government therefore was contemplating to inaugurate the ‘Aahaar’ scheme in a separate programme by the Chief Minister.

According to sources, on Friday night, BJD cadres received information from some sources that the RSP management is backing out from the scheme. Hundreds of cadres of BJD, including senior party leaders of the district like Rajgangpur MLA Mangala Kisan, Raghunathpalli MLA Subrat Tarai and former Rourkela MLA and minister Sarada Nayak staged a demonstration at Bisra Chowk area of the city.

Rourkela BJP unit in a press release has termed the BJD demonstration a ‘farce’.