By SANTOSH MOHANTY
With campaigning slowly picking up for panchayat poll in Angul district, candidates are expecting a hostile electorate who are facing hardship as basic issues like communication, drinking water, health and pollution are never resolved by their chosen representatives during their tenure.
Angul, one of the industrial hubs of Odisha and eastern India, is grappling with a major issue relating to safe motorable highway. The four lane work of National Highway 55 which passes through Angul town has been virtually abandoned. Gone are the days when it was a sprawling highway being praised by motorists and commuters as well. Potholes, ditches and broken path now resembles the highway which is the lifeline of Odisha. The Sambalpur-Cuttack NH 55 connects two major industrial cities of the state.
 |
| NH-55 with garbage all around near Hulurisinga square |
The four lane work has started in 2018 and was due to be completed in 2020. But, nearly fifty percent of the total work has been finished till date. Most of the work has been abandoned, reason of which is best known to the construction company.
The construction company brasses have become so powerful that they did not care the admonition of no less than the Deputy Speaker of Odisha Legislative Assembly Rajanikant Singh. Singh who is also the Member of Legislative Assembly(MLA) of Angul assembly constituency, had given the road construction company three month's ultimatum to finish the work, but to no avail. Angul District Collector Siddharth Shankar Swain, while reviewing the four lane work at a high level meeting recently, had also directed the road construction company to expedite the work. But, there was no positive response from the company.
Over a dozen casualties have occurred in the past six months due to worst road condition which can never be categorized as an important highway that passes through an industrial hub linking two trade centres of Odisha.
 |
| The broken standpoint at Bantala |
The government is boasting that it has successfully solved the drinking water issue in villages by linking households with pipes. The reality, is however, different. A visit to Bantala Gram Panchayat will change one's perception in this regard. The standpoints for drinking water are damaged as the project was abandoned. People of Bantala have been facing scarcity of potable water for years, but the elected representatives, especially the Panchayati Raj Institution(PRI) members, were never worried about the issue.
The health sector in the district is in a shambles as news reports on the alleged mismanagement in DHQ hospital in Angul are splashed in the national as well as regional media. Recently Angul hospital hugged the headlines in the newspapers after some journalists were manhandled for exposing hospital management on different issues. The medical college and hospital in the black diamond township, Talcher, is yet to start due to utter negligence of authorities.
And last but not the least is the ever-present pollution issue that was never dealt properly to minimize the impact. People of Talcher lost hearth and home for coal but none cares as they are dying for a few buckets of potable water. Reports said over 200 villages surrounding open cast mines in Talcher sub-division are facing acute shortage of drinking water. Womenfolks have to traverse several kilometers to fetch water for their daily household need. The people's representatives have turned a blind eye to their problem as they allegedly dole out false promises every five year to mitigate their suffering.
