By Sujeet Kumar, IANS
Raipur : With their land gone and no sign of the jobs promised by the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), some villagers in Chhattisgarh who had surrendered prime farmland to the company for a steel plant in 2002 now want the plot to be given to other investors.
Led by Sarpanch Laikhan Baghel, a group of affected farmers in Bastar district -where the NMDC had committed to setting up the 1.5 million tonne per annum (mtpa) plant – met Chief Minister Raman Singh here Tuesday.
They urged the “government to pass on the land to other potential investors for the plant on the same piece of land rather than waiting for NMDC indefinitely to fulfil its commitment”.
NMDC – India’s largest iron ore producer and exporter in public sector and with major mining facilities in the state’s Dantewada district – acquired 403 hectares of prime farmland in 2002 from 303 families of Bastar’s Nagarnar, Kasturi, Mongenpur and Amagura villages.
The foundation stone for the project was laid in September 2003 by then deputy prime minister L.K. Advani at Nagarnar, about 20 km from the Bastar district headquarters Jagdalpur and about 320 km south of state capital Raipur.
At that time, the villagers who gave up their land at throwaway prices were promised a job at the steel plant for every family.
“The NMDC fenced the acquired area in 2002 and informed us that it would begin installing the steel plant soon. Later it announced that its project had been deadlocked as it was not getting the technology needed,” Baghel told IANS.
“All the 303 families that surrendered land for the plant are very poor, the majority of them handed all their land. We are facing a starvation death-like situation as the land is under the control of NMDC since 2002 and we are not even allowed to visit it.”
Official sources said the farmers informed Raman Singh they had little to eat as the land, which was their lone source of livelihood, was taken over by NMDC.
An official source said: “Considering their poor economic condition, the chief minister assured the farmers that the government give a clear instruction to NMDC to set up the plant on the acquired land.
“The chief minister told villagers that his government was solidly behind the Bastar farmers and the government would also consider taking back the acquired land from NMDC if it failed to make satisfactory progress in fulfilling its commitment.”