Mahanadi: BJD defers Chhattisgarh visit

The ruling BJD today deferred to next week the visit of its 12-member delegation to Chhattisgarh for inspecting construction of certain projects on upstream of river Mahanadi.
The delegation led by BJD vice-president and MP Prasanna Acharya was scheduled to begin its visit the neighbouring state from tomorrow.
"Tomorrow is Sunday and therefore, we will go to Chhattishgarh some other day. It may be any day next week," BJD spokesman and delegation member P K Deb told PTI.
On whether there was any problem to get consent from the Chhattishgarh government, Deb said, "No, that is not the issue. We have deferred the visit tomorrow as Sunday is a holiday."

Earlier in the day, the BJD delegation had a meeting ahead of the visit to Chhattisgarh. The delegation has sought cooperation from the Chhattishgarh government, said Acharya.
Deb said the team will visit the neighbouring State in two phases.

"In the first phase, we have planned to visit the Kelo and Arpa-Bhaisajhar project sites along with seven other barrage projects. We want their chief engineer, superintending engineer or other project officials to remain present and discuss with us," Deb said.
In the second phase, the BJD delegation also comprising some irrigation experts will visit Pairi-Mahanadi intra-state link project proposed by Chhattisgarh and others, which is on an another route.

The team will submit a report to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik after assessing the ground realities at the project sites, Deb said.
Besides Acharya and Deb, other members of the team are Finance minister Pradip Amat, Industries minister Debi Mishra, Food Supplies minister Sanjay Dasburma and party leaders like Rohit Pujari, Kishore Mohanty, Sushant Singh, Padmanabh Behera, Pramila Mallik and Raseswari Panigrahi.