NALCO divestment - an injustice to Orissa: Katiyar

Bhubaneswar, June 25 (UNI) BJP General Secretary Vinay Katiyar today described the ten per cent divestment in the profit-making NALCO as a ''great injustice'' to Orissa and its people.

Addressing newspersons after attending the state executive body meeting of the party, Mr Katiyar said the UPA government had discriminated against the people of Orissa by offloading ten per cent equity in the public sector NALCO, considered a symbol of pride for the state.

He announced the BJP would go for a statewide awareness campaign against the UPA government's action and said the people of Orissa would give a befitting reply to the Centre.

A political resolution, passed in the party's state executive, strongly condemned the Centre's decision to divestment in NALCO and described the action as ''unfortunate and unjustified''.

Mr Katiyar said he had discussed the issue with state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who had also expressed his strong resentment over the divestment. The BJD and BJP would soon chalk-out a strategy to put pressure on the Centre to reconsider the divestment, he added.

To a question, the BJP leader denied that during the NDA regime the Cabinet had approved the divestment proposal of NALCO and said the BJP had all along opposed the divestment the public sector unit.

The Centre's decision to offload its 10 per cent equity in NALCO had led to widespread discontent among PSU employees and officials, who had stalled production at Smelter Plant in Angul and Refinery Plant at Damanjodi for a day.

Ministers Bishnu Das, Pramila Mallick and Raghunath Mohanty yesterday led a BJD demonstration in front of NALCO's corporate office protesting the disinvestment.

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