The government on Friday informed the State Assembly that it did not spend anything on publicity and crowd gathering on the occasion of dedication of Paradip Refinery Complex to nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 7 last.
The reply raised eyebrows in political circles as the Department of Information and Public Relation had placed full page colour advertisement in vernacular dailies in the run-up to the inauguration of the Rs. 35,000-crore project on February 6.
The advertisement had detailed as to how former Chief Minister Biju Patnaik, father of present Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, played the key role in mooting the idea of setting up a steel plant and petrochemical complex at Paradip.
The advertisement released by the State I&PR department said in 1994 then Union Petroleum Minister had informed the State government about establishment of the complex. The advertisement had given credit to the Odisha government for its commitment which helped materialise the mega industrial project.
“I have asked the State government to give detail account of fund spent from the State exchequer for publicity and spreading awareness for crowd gathering for inauguration of Paradip Refinery Complex. Everybody in Odisha saw as to how the BJP government at Centre and BJD government at State competed among them to take credit of the project. The State government had given advertisements in local dailies a day before the project inauguration. Obviously, the government had spent huge fund for advertisements,” said Subal Sahu, senior Congress MLA, who asked the question.
Mr. Sahu said instead of giving clear answer to specific question, the government tried to play with words.
“The government tried to mislead the House by supplying deceptive answer. The Naveen Patnaik government was impatient to hijack a central government programme. The Biju Janata Dal had then deployed different tricks to sabotage the event attended by Prime Minister Modi,” charged Pradip Purohit, a BJP MLA.
