WODC has become rehabilitation centre of ‘failed’ BJD leaders: Congress

By Debadas Pradhan
Bhubaneswar, August 23: The Congress, the main opposition in the Orissa Legislative Assembly, on Tuesday said the ruling BJD had converted the Western Orissa Development Council (WODC) into rehabilitation centre by accommodating its “failed” leaders.
Raising the issue in the state Assembly, legislators of the party demanded immediate reorganisation of the body with “dynamic” people as its members.
Congress MLA from Kantabanjhi Santosh Singh Saluja said BJD leaders who suffered defeats in the 2009 Assembly and Lok Sabha polls were regularly being rehabilitated in the WODC instead of allowing dynamic people to serve the organisation.
“All those who were defeated in the last elections have been rehabilitated as expert members. These members – who have been taken in the WODC as its expert members - are trying to project them as more powerful persons than the elected Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and Member of Parliaments (MPs). They were also behaving in authoritarian manner,” complained Mr Saluja.
He alleged that “so-called” expert members were asking for bribe to make recommendations for constituency-wise projects.
Critising the state government’s negligence in giving complete autonomy and delay in setting up of WODC headquarters, Congress legislator Naba Kishore Das said that the government’s stand on this sensitive issue was very “shocking” and “shameful.”
“WODC was formed with an objective to address the regional imbalances and bring socio-economic development to the people living in western Orissa districts. It seems that the objective has been defeated by one other the ruling BJD which always tried to make it a subservient body and a centre of rehabilitation of its rejected leaders,” Mr Das observed.
Nihar Ranjan Mohananda, another Congress member, said the WODC which was formed to carry out smooth and sustainable development of local people by formulating and executing its own development policies and programmes, was in moribund because of the state government’s inaction.
The members urged the Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat to direct the government to immediately oust the political members from the WODC appointed as expert members and accept the recommendations of the local MLAs and MPs for execution of various development projects.
The legislators demanded to fill up the post of WODC chairman which is lying vacant since August 1 and shift the headquarters of the organization from Bhubaneswar to a unanimously agreed place in western Orissa.