Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik cancelled the beer bottling project after large scale felling of trees in Dhenkanal district, basing on the RDC report.

RDC DV Swamy in his report has clearly said, "The allocation of bottling plant may be cancelled and alternative site may be provided. Unnecessary felling of trees may be stopped forthwith and immediate plantation should be taken up."

Since the RDC has described the cutting of trees as “unnecessary”, will Chief Minister take action against the persons responsible for this?

After the RDC’s report, it is official now that the tree felling was not required at all for setting up the beer bottling plant. Therefore, the people, may be senior officers, should be booked under the law.

Will the Government rise to the occasion and initiate action against the guilty persons or they will go scot free because they hold high positions in the Government?

The forcible cutting of trees and police action against the protesting women on Saturday had triggered sharp protest from different quarters, prompting Patnaik to order an inquiry on Sunday and stop the felling of trees in the area.

The issue was also raised in the Assembly earlier in the day, where the Congress had moved an adjournment notice for holding a discussion on how and why a large number of trees were felled for setting up the brewery. However, the discussion could not be held as the House was adjourned till 3 pm after the ruling BJD protested against the Centre's decision of changing the funding pattern of the post-matric scholarship for Scheduled Caste students.

The villagers said the locals had been nurturing the trees for decades, developing the area into a community-developed forest.

Officials said the 12.5-acre land was identified by the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) -- the nodal agency for facilitating land for industries -- for setting up of the beer unit. Local Sub Collector Pitambar Samal said the patch of land was not notified as forest belt and had already been declared an industrial estate.

Interestingly, Chief Minister had, earlier this month, laid the foundation for 14 industrial units, including the beer plant.

The project had envisioned setting up of a 2.50-lakh hecto-litre-capacity brewery at a cost of Rs 102 crore.