Jolted by the public outrage and stiff resistance to felling of trees where a beer unit will come up at Balrampur village in Dhenkanal district, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik ordered a halt to the work and directed the revenue divisional commission to conduct a probe. Felling of trees for the Dhenkanal beer factory has invited heavy criticism from local residents and political circles.

The village women had jostled with the police at Balrampur, and hugged trees opposing the felling of trees. On Sunday, they performed rituals of the ‘dead/felled trees’ and vowed to oppose the proposed beer bottling factory to come up at the site.

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Eminent social activists such as Prafulla Samantary, Debi Prusty and others addressed the villagers and expressed their solidarity.

Women in large numbers, along with other villagers, first performed a puja on the felled logs and also planted saplings of fruit bearing trees on the same patch of land.

“Over decades we have protected the trees and grown a forest , nobody , not even the government can destroy it,” said one of the women who accused the police and other officials of stealthily entering the area at 4 am to fell trees just like the timber mafia.

As many as 500 trees were felled yesterday and over 15 villagers detained. Debiprasana Prusty and Prafulla Samantray criticised the state government for allegedly provided the trees to industrial houses. The land has been acquired by IDCO for a industrial cluster.

Talking to mediapersons, Anchalika Surakshya Parishad and Gramya Parichalana Parishad secretary Susant Dhal said the 62 acres acquired by IDCO for the proposed industries including the beer bottling plant should be given back to the community .

“Not only commercial plants are there, as many as 116 types of plants and medicinal trees are there,” Dhal said .

Congress leader Narasingha Mishra termed the felling of trees as illegal warranting criminal case against the authorities concerned.

On Saturday, a scuffle broke out between the police and the local people in Odisha’s Dhenakanal district over felling of trees by the administration to facilitate construction of a brewery.

On Saturday, local people came out in large numbers to protest against the administration’s move to cut down over 950 trees for the brewery project by a private firm, even as the administration promised to plant twice as much saplings to compensate for the loss, an official said.

The officials sources however insist that the area was not notified forest area and that it had been acquired by the IDCO for industries.

On 3 November, the CM had laid foundation stone for several industrial projects via video conferencing , including the bottling plant.