Vice-President’s Odisha Visit Cancelled

Balangir: The scheduled visit of Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu to Odisha was cancelled on Friday due to bad weather.

According to official sources, Naidu was scheduled to arrive in Odisha’s Balangir to dedicate the new LPG Bottling plant to the nation and inaugurate the 5-day platinum jubilee celebrations of Rajendra College.

The Vice-President, after arriving at the airport in Raipur in a special aircraft from Delhi, was scheduled to leave the airport and arrive in Balangir in a helicopter at 9.15 am. However, the flight despite several attempts could not take off due to the dense fog forcing Naidu to return to New Delhi.

In a voice message, Naidu expressed profound regret for not being able to attend the two programmes in Balangir.

In the absence of the Vice-President, Governor Ganeshi Lal later inaugurated the bottling plant in presence of the Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Balangir MP Sangita Singhdeo, minister Arun Sahu and Balangir MLA Narasingha Mishra. The Governor later went to the Gandhi Stadium and inaugurated the five-day platinum jubilee celebration of the Rajendra College.

The BPCL plant has the annual production of about 42 lakh LPG cylinders. The cylinders will be supplied to 14 districts in the southern and western Odisha districts. The plant, which will help direct and indirect employment of the local youths, has been completed 19 months ahead of the schedule.