BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation’s decision to
include 21 gram panchayats (GP) in its jurisdiction has not gone down
well with people of five of those GPs.

Nearly 40,000 people in
28 villages in Barimunda, Kalyanpur, Dadha, Raghunathpur and Kalarahanga
panchayat areas in Bhubaneswar North assembly constituency do not want
the BMC to look after them, as they feel the civic body has failed to
deliver civic amenities to its existing 60 wards.

The BMC, in
its recent council meeting, passed a resolution to annex 21 GPs along
with two revenue villages to reach the one million-population mark. It
will fetch more central aid for different projects.

“We do not
oppose urbanization. But we do not trust the service of BMC, whose
performance is very poor in the city. Once included in BMC’s
jurisdiction, we will have to pay more taxes for different facilities,”
said zila parishad member Basanti Patra. “We have written to the housing and urban development department to scrap the proposal,” she said.

“Our villages are getting ample funds and people here enjoy very good
facilities under various rural schemes. It will not benefit us if the
villages go under BMC jurisdiction,” said Subash Patra, another
villager.

Bhubaneswar North MLA Bhagirathi Badajena
too has thrown his support behind the villagers. “I do not see anything
wrong in the contention of villagers. Their apprehension is justified
as BMC has failed to provide basic amenities to people in many wards in
the city. If BMC pledges to provide the best service, then it’s okay,”
Badajena told TOI.

At present, the city has 60 wards comprising
46 revenue villages with a population of around 8.37 lakh. The BMC area
is spread over 135 sqkm, sources said.

Reacting to the
development, city mayor A N Jena said, “Population yardstick of a city
plays an important role in getting financial assistance from the Centre.
If the population here exceeds 10 lakh, the city would be entitled to
draw more funds. The BMC has been providing good services to the
citizens and will continue to do so in future.”

“We want to
urbanize the city outskirts that has grown by leaps and bounds over the
past few years. We need to regulate the unplanned and chaotic
development outside the BMC area,” he added.

The city’s
population has increased by 1.90 lakh in the last 10 years when the
state’s population increased from 3.68 crore in 2001 to 4.19 crore at
present. The city’s population was 6.47 lakh in 2001.

The 2011
Census figures recently belied public perception that Bhubaneswar has 10
lakh plus population. Earlier, several projections had put it over 12
lakh.