By IANS
Jagatsinghpur : The local administration Thursday imposed prohibitory orders in a village in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district where both the supporters and protestors of the proposed steel project by South Korea’s Posco were to hold rallies.
Posco Pratirodah Sangram Samiti (PPSS), the organization, which is opposing the project observed Thursday as ‘Kranti Divas’ and had decided to organise a public meeting at Balitutha bazaar, one of the places that would be affected by the project.
They had decided to conduct a mass rally in which people from several areas including the other affected villages such as Nuagaon, Dhinikia and Gadakujnag panchayat were scheduled to congregate, a senior police official said.
The anti-Posco activists had also planned to involve school children and village women to make the meeting a success. More than 3,000 people were expected to attend the meeting at Balithutha, some 30 km from the port town of Paradeep.
On the other hand, supporters of the Posco plant under the banner of Purbanchala Bikash Parishad and Posco Jansampark Bikash Parishad were also scheduled to organise a public meeting at the same village on Thursday.
They had announced this meeting to protest the activities of the anti-Posco group. They alleged that the anti-Posco activists were terrorizing the local people who were supporting the project.
To avoid any untoward incident in the area, the district administration clamped prohibitory orders under section 144 of Indian penal code and prohibited any public meeting within 2 km of the bazaar, a senior district police official told IANS.
“We have also deployed two platoons of police force to avoid any untoward incident,” district superintendent of police Y.K. Jethwa said.
Posco, one of the world’s biggest steel makers, signed a deal with the Orissa government in June 2005 to set up the plant near the port town of Paradeep in the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur by 2016.
Over 20,000 people in the district are protesting the project saying it will displace them and ruin their betel leaf farming.
Those supporting the project say the plant will bring economic activities in the region.