By Sujeet Kumar, IANS
Raipur : Land acquisition for two plants of Tata Steel and Essar Steel and a coal-fired power unit in Chhattisgarh will be completed with the consensus of farmers and tribals, says Chief Minister Raman Singh.
“Both the steel plants and the power plant will come up in tribal areas. Acquiring land in tribal habitats is always a tough task. I have always said that land will be acquired only on the basis of consensus,” Raman Singh told IANS in an interview at the state secretariat.
His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government completed four years in power Friday.
Raman Singh, an ayurvedic doctor by training, said he had done his best in the past four years to bring about an industrial revolution in the mineral-rich state.
Chhattisgarh is considered one of the poorest states in the country, with 42 percent of the people living below the poverty line despite the state having over 20 percent of India’s iron ore reserves and about 18 percent of its coal deposits.
“My top concern when I was appointed chief minister Dec 7, 2003, was to set the tone for industrialisation of the state’s worst poverty-hit Bastar region that has huge iron-ore stocks and the vast northern backward belt of Surguja,” Raman Singh said.
“I am now satisfied that the pace of industrialisation has picked up in both the southern and northern regions,” the chief minister said.
He was referring to a five-million tonne per annum (MTPA) steel plant to be set up in the southern district of Bastar by Tata Steel with a Rs.100-billion investment and a 3.2-MPTA plant by Essar Steel in neighbouring Maoist insurgency-hit Dantewada district with an investment of Rs.70 billion.
Raman Singh also said that a 1,000-MW power plant would spur industrialisation and development in Surguja district in the north. Surguja sends thousands of migrants to other states in search of jobs as labourers.
The project is a joint venture between the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Co-operative Ltd (IFFCO) and the Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board (CSEB) with an investment of Rs.45 billion
Raman Singh said that Tata Steel, which signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the plant in June 2005, has “completed 60 percent land acquisition for the 5-MPTA that needs 2,063.06 hectares in the Chitrakote assembly segment.
Land acquisition for industry has become a sensitive issue in India. It exploded in a big way when violence broke out in Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal where farmers have alleged forceful takeover of farmland.
But in Chhattisgarh, Singh said: “The acquisition process is underway very peacefully. I think Tata Steel will begin construction work at the project site by February-March 2008.
“For Essar Steel, which requires 600 hectares at Dhurli and Bhansi villages in Dantewada district, land acquisition will be completed in 2008 with consent from the people,” he added.
Raman Singh observed that at Premnagar village in Surguja, tribals would give up land in 2008 to allow IFFCO Chhattisgarh Power Ltd, the joint venture of IFFCO and CSEB.