Thursday, April 21, 2016

WIO's #BeatTheHeat2016 Campaign: 'An Issue A Day' with the Chief Minister of Odisha! Issue 3 - 20 April 2016



19th April, 2016

Dear Friends/Co-sailors,

Greetings from Water Initiatives Odisha (WIO) !

As you are aware, we at WIO have just initiated a citizen's voluntary campaign #BeatTheHeat2016 to spread awareness and action to mitigate heat wave, climate change and related environmental crises in the state of Odisha this summer.

As part of this campaign, starting 18th April, we have started a Poster Drive to 'Raise An Issue A Day' with the Chief Minister of Odisha urging upon him to take notice of the vital issues and take action.

Today, on 20th April 2016, we are raising the Third Issue with the Chief Minister. 

While we have attached today's poster above, pasting below the Issue - 3 for your reference and doing the needful,:

We sincerely need your kind support in making this drive successful for benefit of the common people suffering from Heat Wave and related disasters.  Hope you shall actively participate in this campaign.   

Issue No.3 raised with the CM of Odisha on 20th April 2016

 The state has failed in accepting real number of deaths due to Heat Wave
Officials responsible for assessing heat wave death victims have failed in doing justice to the victims and their families.  While circumstantial evidences make it clear that the deaths are due to Sun Stroke, the state has been very conservative in accepting the real death figures.  Take for example the cases of last year in which108 people died of sun stroke, but the government only confirmed 21 cases. This year also, the same attitude is being followed.
Please simplify rules, be sensitive and consider circumstantial evidences, besides post-mortem reports, to ensure justice to all heat wave victims of the state. Also, build a robust grievance redressal mechanism that can help victims, who have been deprived of the compensation/benefits, to get justice through a transparent process of inquiry/investigation at government cost.

We have already twitted this to the CM.

You may also like to retweet it from our twitter handles @ranjanpanda and @MahanadiRiver.  In that case, please don't forget to tag @CMO_Odisha and use the hashtag @BeatTheHeat2016

In this campaign, we are asking all concerned citizens of Odisha to send in the issues/questions they feel are vital to be raised with the CM.  Our Campaign Coordination Committee will decide on relevant issues and then send in one poster a day to the CM for the coming few weeks.

As always, we look forward to your support in this as well.

Call To Action Poster: 

Today, with this post, we are also sending to you a "Call To Action" poster that we had issued yesterday to citizens - as part of this campaign - asking them to call up the Executive Engineer (PH) of Jharsuguda to provide clean drinking water to people of mining city Belpahad in that district.  

As you can see from the poster, the water being provided through tankers is too dirty and polluted.  A citizen volunteer had sent us these photos with the request to take up the matter in the campaign.  

We are seeking citizen response like this from across the state and appeal you to kindly help us reach out to the entire state.


Thanking you,
Truly,


Ranjan Panda

Convenor, Water Initiatives Odisha (WIO)
Mahanadi River Waterkeeper (Member, Global Waterkeeper Alliance)


Tweet @ranjanpanda
Tweet @MahanadiRiver

Skype: ranjan.climatecrusader

Blog: http://www.climatecrusaders.blogspot.com/

Fighting water woes, combating climate change...more than 25 years now!


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