The Hindu : Other States / Orissa News : The two sides of the city

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Tuesday, Jan 06, 2009
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The two sides of the city

It seems two worlds exist in Bhubaneswar. One is the regular thoroughfare of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and another, which is not frequented by the Chief Minister.

The road that originates from Biju Patnaik Airport, touches Bhubaneswar Club, an elite club, and Raj Bhawan, joins three major hotels and finally ends at Infocity that has been developed into a model road, to which all metro administrators in the country will be envious.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) appears to have spent all its energy beautifying the road. Many say the Chief Minister loves nature and BMC cannot afford to miss the opportunity.

The other world can be found in old residential areas where full-length road is hardly visible during rainy season as most parts of these roads remain flooded. People are enjoying their best time now by negotiating with visible road. Everybody now demands that cavalcade of Chief Minister should at least pass through their area once in a month, so that it would stir up BMC authorities to take up developmental work which had been pending since long.

Growth of media

With elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assembly just a few months away, Bhubaneswar appears to be all set to witness the birth of many media organisations. At least three daily newspapers are likely to hit the stands before the polls. A minimum of two Oriya television channels are also in the offing. One finds many hoardings dotting the city’s skyline about the newspapers that were about to be born.

With all political parties trying to have their hold over some newspaper or television channel or both, the next elections will surely add to the growth of media in the State. But whether the politicians would continue their support to the new media houses will be known only after the polls are over.

Money matters!

People, who keep track of foreign exchange rate in the city, are not exporters, as they are scarce. They are mostly retired parents of software engineers working abroad. And in these days of recession and fluctuating currency rates, it is their major point of discussion during their morning walk. While describing the income and status of their children staying abroad they never forget to get the salary packet converted to rupees to make their progenies instant lakhpatis and crorepatis. This utterance comes with bloated pride. When discussion progresses they also describe about samosa that costs Rs. 50 each, condoms that cost Rs. 100 for three, chocolates that cost Rs. 200 . One need not get startled. They just convert the prices of these items bought in dollars or Euros to rupees. They try to forget that usually one has to spend in the currency in which one earns. Any Indian with Indian currency in pocket is surely a rich man in adjoining Bangladesh.

(Satyasundar Barik , Prafulla Das and

Sib Kumar Das)

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