By Jatindra Dash, Indo-Asian News Service
Paradeep (Orissa): Trouble continues to dog South Korean major Posco’s proposed mega steel plant in Orissa, the largest foreign direct investment in India. The abduction of four of its officials was the latest form of protest by the anti-Posco groups who allege the proposed plant will take away the land they have been tilling for years.
The four officials, who were confined by protestors in a village in Jagatsinghpur district, where the plant is to come up, were released after several hours of captivity.
But that does not indicate that the problem is over. The situation continues to be tense in the area with villagers showing up in strength to oppose the project, to come up near the port town of Paradeep in Jagatsinghpur. The people have dug up the roads in several places leading to their villages so that company officials are not able to visit to discuss land acquisition for the plant.
The villagers have also built wooden gates in at least nine places and are keeping guard to prevent government officials from entering the area.
Posco, one of the world’s biggest steel makers, signed a deal with the state government in June 2005 to set up a $12 billion steel plant near Paradeep by 2016.
It wants over 4,000 acres of land for the project. While 430 acres is private land, the rest belongs to the government. The state government recently provided 1,500 acres to the company on paper. However, the company has yet to get the land in its possession.
The real problem is that local residents have encroached upon the government land since decades and do not want to vacate. The state government, which had earlier assured the company it would provide all the land, has remained silent in view of the public opposition. It has asked the company to negotiate with locals. The company has, in the meanwhile, offered the affected villagers market price for the land.
But it did not help.
Over 20,000 people from around 15 nearby villages, including Dhinkia, Gada Kujanga and Nuagaon are protesting the project, saying it will not only displace them but also ruin their betel leaf farming, a permanent source of livelihood.
Posco says the plant would affect only 500 families, but help create thousands of jobs. But villagers say more families would be uprooted by the project.
While the company officials hope things would become normal in a few days and they will be able to motivate the villagers to sell their land, many locals say it would be difficult.
“We will not allow any Posco official to enter our villages,” said Abhaya Sahu, president of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), which is campaigning against the steel plant. “If they enter they will face the consequences,” he warned.
However, Posco-India public relations officer Sasanka Patnaik told IANS: “The anti Posco activists have presence in only one of three affected panchayats (village councils). They are not allowing officials to enter only Dhinkia panchayat whereas Posco officials are freely entering the other two panchayats – Badakijanga and Nuagaon.”
A senior district police official told IANS: “The anti-Posco group has become so strong that police are afraid of visiting any affected villages.”
On Friday, the police did not even visit the village where the anti-Posco activists had kept two company officials. It is the protestors who themselves released the officials on their own, said the official on condition of anonymity.
“Similarly, the local administration is not able to provide protection to the people who have been supporting Posco,” he said.
There have been numerous clashes between those for and against Posco in the past but police have not arrested a single person from either side, he said.