The Charmal Police on Wednesday booked six Kendu leaf smugglers and detained another for allegedly attacking the Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF) of Rairakhol Forest Division and members of his team near Gargadbahal village in Sambalpur district on Tuesday night. As per reports, ACF Debiprasad Rout along with his team rushed to investigate upon receiving information about the illegal transportation of huge quantity of Kendu leaves in the forests under the Charmal police station jurisdiction. However, while returning six persons, suspected to be Kendu leaf smugglers, stopped the patrolling vehicle and threatened the ACF after pulling out sharp weapons. In the meantime, a pick-up van carrying smuggled Kendu leaves hit the officer’s vehicle from the side and fled the spot. “After receiving lead from a reliable source regarding the smuggling of Kendu leaves, a team of forest staff reached the spot for investigation. However, they were intercepted and threatened by the smugglers. On hearing this, I immediately rushed to the spot and managed to bring back the team,” informed the ACF.
Close on the heels of the corruption allegations emerging in the recruitment process of Odisha Staff Selection Commission (OSSC), charges of irregularities have now been levelled against the evaluation process of answer sheets in Odisha Administrative Service (OAS) Examination. Rajat Kumar Mishra, an OPSC candidate from Dhamnagar in Bhadrak district had appeared the OAS exam in 2015 but could not make it to the final merit list despite doing well in the mains and the interview round. Rajat says that he later filed an application before the Commission to get a copy of his answer sheet to see what went wrong. Though he got a delayed response after a year in 2016, he was shocked to find that the mark awarded to him in the sheet (117) was later changed to 50 without citing any reason. When he knocked the doors of the OPSC to know the truth behind the reduction in his marks, he alleged that he did not get any help.“The examiner had awarded 117 in the answer sheet but the score was later changed to 50. Though everyone is admitting that there was a mistake in the evaluation, I could not get justice. However, the concerned authorities told that the marks awarded to me earlier were also not enough to crack the examination,” alleged Rajat.
Odisha rain: Heavy rainfall lashed 11 districts of Odisha as the weather department predicted formation of a fresh depression over the Bay of Bengal around September 11. The India Meteorological Department issued a 'yellow' warning for 14 districts in south and coastal Odisha and warned fishermen against venturing into the sea on Wednesday.
The State Government has expressed concern over delay in implementation of the Subarnarekha Port project even nearly a year after laying of foundation stone by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.“The estimated cost of the port to be set up at Chumukh in Baliapal block of Balasore district is Rs 5,000 crore for which 692 acre land has already been provided to the developers,” an official statement said.“Although 692.68 acre land has been leased out to the developer since January 2018, the construction work is yet to begin,” said a senior officer of the Commerce and Transport department. The project was reviewed at a high-level meeting here recently where Director of Subarnarekha Port Pvt. Ltd. (SPPL) Ramani Ramaswami explained that the construction activities were delayed due to some hurdles, both local and legal, during land acquisition and alienation for connectivity to the port. One of the problems is fragmentation of ‘Chaka’ land in five villages under Basta tehsil.