Sans forest clearance, development a far cry in Odisha’s largest slum

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jan 9:

In the absence of proper road connectivity, water supply, health and educational facilities, development is still a far cry in Saliasahi, the biggest slum in Odisha.

The slum, situated in the heart of the capital city of Bhubaneswar, is Odisha’s largest and home to approximately 100000 residents. While other slums in the city benefit from government welfare schemes, the ever growing Saliasahi gets ignored every time.

It spreads over a 225 acre of forest land making it difficult for the Odisha government to issue land ownership documents to residents without the clearance from the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) of Government of India. The state government needs to have approval from the Forest and Environment ministry to get roads constructed, water supply systems set up and school or hospital building constructed.

Speaking to OST, the MLA of North Bhubaneswar (Saliasahi comes under this assembly constituency) Priyadarshi Mishra said, “We had planned to construct pakka houses in the slum on PPP mode with the help of Tata group. However, the move was blocked due to lack of clearance from MoEFCC. We would be happy if MoEFCC allows us to use only 25 acres out of the 225 to build multi-storeyed buildings to accommodate the slum dwellers. We are even prepared to give the same amount of land to MoEFCC at another place.”

Mayor of the city Anant Narayan Jena echoed the statement of the MLA and expressed his dissatisfaction about the non cooperation of MoEFCC.

It may be noted that, during a recent visit to the slum, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan had assured the residents that he would take the mayor of the city and local MLAs along with him and meet the Union Minister for Environment & Forest to sort out the matter of their land allotment.