Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Wednesday demanded Special Category Status for Odisha highlighting that the state has been facing natural disasters time to time resulting in massive economic losses.
Raising the issue in the Rajya Sabha through a special mention, the BJD MP Dr. Sasmit Patra said that Odisha has been demanding for the Special Category State status for more than two decades.
BJD President Naveen Patnaik has raised this demand several times in the past. The present ruling party in Odisha had also mentioned this demand as its first point in its Election Manifesto for the 2014 Odisha elections. Odisha has suffered many natural disasters. Cyclones such as the 1999 Super Cyclone, Phailin, Hudhud, Titli, Fani, Bulbul,Amphan, Yaas, Gulab, Jawad, Michaung to the recent Dana have cumulatively caused massive economic losses to Odisha. Floods and deficit rains have aggravated those financial losses which have had an adverse impact on the lives and livelihood of people of Odisha; apart from destruction of thousands of crores worth public infrastructure such as roads, bridges, etc. due to cyclones and floods. Therefore, it’s important that losses from such natural disasters be compensated to Odisha by providing Special Category State status, the BJD MP said.
The SDRF and NDRF funds are insufficient and do not do justice to the large scale damage that Odisha suffers from time to time. Special Category Status will ensure 90:10 ratio centre to state funding of central programmes and help Odisha to conserve its own resources and deploy them more effectively to rebuild those public infrastructure that have been damaged due to natural disasters. This is a long-standing and very genuine demand of 4.5 crore people of Odisha, Dr. Patra added.
He urged the Government of India to provide Special Category State status to Odisha expeditiously.