POSCO War Zone - Angry villagers damage approach road

Tuesday, 15 Feb 2011

Members of POSCO Pratirosh Sangram Samiti and residents from the Dhinkia panchayat of Jagatsinghpur district guarding the entrance to their village on Sunday to prevent entry of personnel of the Orissa government and POSCO.

The agitation against land acquisition for the POSCO steel plant intensified in this seaside gram panchayat in Jagatsinghpur district on Sunday, with the villagers damaging an approach road to the area earmarked for the project.

Led by Mr Abhay Sahu chairman of the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, which has been spearheading the protest since July 2005 more than 150 people from different hamlets in Dhinkia went out with spades and other tools and damaged the ‘kuchha' road leading to the project site from the Paradip port, which is a few km away.

The PPSS activists decided to damage the road, which runs along the coastline, after the chairman of the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation and the Director General of Police took the same road to reach the site on Saturday.

The IDCO plans to make the road a ‘pucca' one as it will act as an approach route to the 4,004 acres earmarked for the POSCO's steel plant and captive port near the mouth of the Jatadhari river. Mr Sahu said that “We will continue our agitation peacefully. We will not hand over an inch of land for POSCO in our locality at any cost.”

Talking of the visit of the DGP and the IDCO Chairman to the area, Mr Sahu said that “It clearly shows that the State government is readying for applying force to evict people from their land and homes.”

In August last year, the State government halted the land acquisition process after an order from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. But after the Ministry granted conditional environmental clearance recently, the government is now planning to resume land acquisition after giving an assurance to the Ministry about the people claiming to be dependent on the forestland.

But the villagers are in mood to allow the government to resume the work; they have erected six bamboo gates at the entry points of their gram panchayat to prevent officials, POSCO employees and the police from entering their hamlets. (sourced:Thehindu)

Tags:POSCO War Zone,Jagdishpur, Orissa government, steel plant, IDCO, India steel industry news

POSCO war Zone - Government officials visit proposed port site

Monday, 14 Feb 2011

Orissa Diary reported that top state government officials paid spot visit visited proposed POSCO captive port site nearer to Paradeep and held a high level meeting with district officials at Paradeep circuit house.

The visiting state higher ups included IDCO managing director cum nodal officer for POSCO project Mr Priyabrata Pattnaik, state director general police Mr MM Praharaj, Jagatsinghpur district collector Mr NC Jena and Superintendent of Police Mr S Devadatta Singh, Rehabilitation officer Mr Surajit Das Paradeep, Additional district magistrate Saroj Kanta Chouhurry land acquisition officer Mr Nrusingha Swain and other district level officers from revenue department.

According to official sources added that for collecting ground level information’s about the project state senior officials had come to Paradeep on Saturday and held discussion with district officials.

Sources said after union ministry of Environment and Forests department cleared much hyped POSCO project imposing elevated conditions on 31 January the visit of state government officials to proposed project site marks significant as state government yet to be complied with MoEF and seeking for final clearance.

(sourced:orissadiary.com)