Odisha plans to restore coastal green cover
Uprooted trees in Puri. Nearly 22 lakh trees have been destroyed in the cyclone in Odisha.Biswaranjan Rout Cyclone Fani-hit State aims at planting over 1.3 crore saplings as per a five-year scheme
Uprooted trees in Puri. Nearly 22 lakh trees have been destroyed in the cyclone in Odisha.Biswaranjan Rout Cyclone Fani-hit State aims at planting over 1.3 crore saplings as per a five-year scheme
Bhubaneswar: Shedding its image of abject poverty, starvation and child selling, Odisha in recent years has embraced growth and prosperity by adopting certain fiscal corrective measures and attracting huge private capital, said speakers at the ‘Resurgent Odisha’ seminar organized by The Times of India in Bhubaneswar on Friday. CM Naveen Patnaik and experts from different fields said that the state had become a favourable destination for investors, both from within and outside India, and had the potential to become a gateway to Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
The Odisha government on Friday issued the notification for banning manufacturing, sale and use of gutkha in the state. “In pursuance of regulation 2.3.4 of the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Regulation-2011, the manufacture, storage, sale and distribution of gutkha and panmasala containing tobacco or nicotine as ingredients by whatsoever name available in the market is hereby prohibited in the greater interest of public,” the notification read. Food inspectors and inspectors of police have been authorised through the notification to implement the ban in their respective areas of jurisdiction, secretary (health) P K Mohapatra said .
Evacuation problems play spoil sport The rates of power generated from Odisha have been declining in the energy market over the past couple of months because of evacuation problems precipitated by poor transmission infrastructure, said the state-run power trader Gridco Ltd. The rates, which were as high as Rs 6.30 per unit in November 2012, came down to Rs 4.50 per unit this week.
The Odisha Government today began consultations with villagers to acquire an additional 700 acre required for the Posco project, with a group opposed to it saying it was illegal. Though District Collector SK Mallick was confident of convincing the villagers to give up their land, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti president Abhay Sahoo termed the government's efforts to acquire land as illegal. "The effort to acquire land is illegal as a case in is pending in the court of the National Green Tribunal," Sahoo said.
The All Odisha Steel Federation (AOSF), an association of secondary and finished steel makers, has urged the ministerial panel on raw material supply to address issues pertaining to pricing and availability of minerals ahead of the next meeting of the committee on Thursday. It said, though the recent state government notification to reserve half of the iron ore output for local units was beneficial for the industry, the mine owners were deliberately quoting higher rates.
Championing the cause of all coal bearing states, which have been demanding allocation of a portion of the power produced by the thermal projects coming up their respective states free of cost, the Odisha government has urged the Planning Commission to take a call on the issue at the earliest. Odisha had demanded 25 per cent free power from coal-based project while its claim for such largesse from the plants based on coal washery rejects was pegged at 33 per cent.
Undeterred by refusals from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests to grant sanction for using the Compensatory Afforestation and Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) funds for straightening
The state energy department has proposed to impose a special cess on industrial water consumers for maintenance of water reservoirs. The proposal is aimed at reducing energy tariff as hydro power generators include maintenance expenditure while quoting rates for sale of electricity. "A corpus should be created by imposing a levy on the industries drawing water from different reservoirs for the purpose of maintenance of reservoirs and water sources by making periodical dredging and removal of shoals,” energy secretary P K Jena wrote to the water resources department.
Joining the league of tobacco-free states, the Odisha government on Tuesday imposed a ban on the manufacture, sale and consumption of guthka in the state. “Rising up to its concern for healthy living of common people, the state government has decided to ban tobacco containing gutkha according to section 234 of the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restriction on Sales) Regulation, 2011,” Health and Family Welfare minister Damodar Rout said. He said, the Supreme Court and different high courts had earlier directed the states to slap such a ban as the nicotine-contained chewing masalas cause diseases like cancer.
In a bid to find alternate source of bauxite for the Lanjigarh alumina refinery of the Vedanta Alumininium Ltd (VAL), which is shut down for want of raw material since December 5, Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) has decided to apply for mining lease of Karlapat bauxite deposits soon. OMC had entered into a Mou with VAL for supply of bauxite from its Niyamgiri mines in Kalahandi district, but the plan was derailed by persistent protests by tribal community and green activists, finally leading to the cancellation of forest clearance for the mining activity by Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) in August 2010.