Odisha : Threat of Bangladeshi infiltrators grabbing Govt. benefits
Samanwaya Nanda
Bhubaneswar: As the Odisha Government is on a massive drive to provide pucca dwelling house to slum dwellers across the state in a big way, Legislatures cutting across party line have expressed serious concern that illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators might take advantage as they are present in city slums in large numbers.
The Odisha Government recently has decided to reserve 20 per cent of the land in urban areas to settle poor slum dwellers under centrally sponsored Rajiv Abas Yojana (RAY).
In a memorandum submitted to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik host of MLAs from ruling Biju Janata Dal apart from BJP, Congress and Independents joined the issue and urged the Chief Minister to be careful enough while choosing beneficiaries.
The signatories of the memorandum from ruling BJD including former Minister Sanjeev Sahoo, Amar Prashad Satpathy, Senior BJD MLA Nabin Nanda, Prafulla Kumar Mallick, BJP’s Karindra Majhi, Congress Party’s Prafulla Majhi, Surendra Prasad pramanik and independnt MLA Pratap Sarangi and Braja Kishore Pradhan.
With MLAs from cross section of political parties with majority of them from ruling party joining issues on illegal Bangladeshi settlers, the issues of illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators are back in public debate.
Especially their presence in urban localities apart from their established presence in places bordering Bay of Bengal in many coastal districts of the state had added to concern.
In the memorandum the legislatures specifically mentioned cities like Bhubaneswar, Balasore, Puri, Kendrapara and Angul where these illegal inflitrators are settled in slums in sizable numbers and pointed out possibility of they grabbing government sponsored RAY houses at the cost of the locals.
These MLAs also expressed concern that the illegal migrants are trying to justify their presence through enrolling themselves with their enrolment through Adhar Cards. These MLAs urged the Chief Minister to caution administration to not to enroll them neither in Adhar card nor in the voters list.
In another development State Government in an written answer to Congress legislature Santosh Singh Saluja denied of any information with State Government regarding special settlement colonies of illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators along the rail line in Satyanagar locality of capital city Bhubaneswar. Responding to Saluja’s query Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who holds the Home portfolio did not answer directly whether illegal Bangladeshi’s are settled or not. Rather he preferred a diplomatic answer that the Government does not have any information.
