The villagers said they do not want their villages to be included under
BMC thanks to the corporation’s poor show in the existing 60 wards.

BMC in its recent council meeting passed the resolution to annex 21 GPs
along with two revenue villages to cross the one million-population
tag, which, if achieved, can fetch more central aid for different
projects.

The five panchayats, raising the banner of revolt,
are identified as Barimunda, Kalyanpur, Dadha, Raghunathpur and
Kalarahanga under Bhubaneswar North assembly constituency. The GPs
consist of a total number of 28 villages with a population of nearly
forty thousand. “We do not oppose urbanization. But we do not trust the
service of BMC whose poor performance is seen inside the city. Once
included under BMC, we will pay more tax towards different facilities,
which we are now not getting at very cheaper prices,” 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 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 threw 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 pledged to provide
the best service, then it’s okay,” Badajena told TOI.

Currently the city has 60 wards consisting of 46 revenue villages with a
population of around 8.37 lakh. The BMC area is spread over 135 sqkm,
sources said. “Population yardstick of a city plays an important role in
getting financial assistance from Centre. If the population here
exceeds 10 lakh, the city would be entitled to draw more funds,” BMC
mayor A N Jena said.

“BMC has been providing better services to citizens and will stick to it in the future,” Jena said.

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

The
city added 1.90 lakh people in past 10 years when the state’s population
increased from 3.68 crore in 2001 to the current 4.19 crore. The city’s
population was 6.47 lakh in 2001. The 2011 Census figures recently
belied the public perception that Bhubaneswar was having a 10 lakh plus
population. Earlier several projections had put it over 12 lakh. But the
latest figure came as a setback because Million Plus cities would
instill different confidence among investors.