Farmers’ support for economic blockade

The Statesman, 29th March, 2008

The economic blockade launched by advocates received a boost with farmers of Bargarh district lending support and joining the agitation from today.Interestingly farmers of the region who are also up in arms against the government for the past several months due to indiscriminate allocation of Hirakud dam and Mahanadi waters to industrial houses joined hands with lawyers.The solidarity has exposed the ruling BJD’s claims of having successfully dealt with the farmer’s unrest in the region. Chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik had addressed a farmer’s rally at Bargarh, announced a package and tried to woo the peasants. Some of the BJD workers had clashed with lawyers the same day as advocates had given a bandh call. The BJD leaders had decried the bandh and even blamed the police administration of behaving in a partisan manner. A few senior ruling party activists accused the superintendent of police and have been demanding action against him.But today's unity between farmers and lawyers indicates that the clash during the farmers rally was more of a BJD versus lawyers rather than farmers were lawyers tussle.Advocates across western Orissa are on agitation. They have virtually paralysed the administration and most of the offices here remain closed in the last part of the financial year. “We will further acclerate the movement if government doesn't fulfill the demand of the people,” informed Mr Nibhuban Prasad Bihari Panda the president of the Bargarh district bar association. Similar agitations are also continuing at Sambalpur, Deogarh, Jharsuguda, Raurkela, Bhawanipatna, Balangir and all other places. With no apparent hope to advocates’ strike and economic blockade demanding a permanent bench of high court to come to an end before in the current financial year, various government offices have discovered a novel path to reduce the year end pressure. They are either functioning during night or shifting to the forest areas to avoid public view. Advocates are not allowing any office in the district headquarters to function normally during the day time. They even ransacked an office of Wesco inside the town as they didn’t agree stop their economic blockade. Hence officers of various departments particularly in revenue, finance, forest, DRDA, PWD, PHD don’t want to have confrontation with advocates but are carrying out their works cleverly. They are working on the files during night and in secluded places, as learnt from established sources. “End of the financial year is crucial for us. No excuse will be entertained by the higher authorities for any lapse. At the same time there is no scope to work usually in our respective offices. Hence, we thought of this novel path,” said a senior officer requesting to keep his name a secret.“Working outside the office is no doubt a difficult affair. But there is no alternative and we have to keep everything ready since nobody will understand our problem rather bang for the non-completion of works,” added another official. There is no dearth of officers in works department criticising administrative inaction. It is duty of the district administration to provide a conducive work environment to government officials. But they fail to do so, remarked a good number of officials.