Beware of Campaign by POSCO and Government to create ‘Feel Good’ ambience for project

By Prashant Paikaray
Recently the government and POSCO have engaged in a media campaign aimed at confusing the entire mass.  They claim to have “downsized” the proposed steel plant, that the “people are coming around” and that the plant construction work will start in October 2012 etc. These  are apparently made to create a ‘feel good’ ambience in favour of the project. Stay cautious on such claims as many of such may simply be bewildering!   


The fact that the people still oppose this unjust project is shown by the fact that yesterday i.e. on 9th July 2012, more than 700 villagers staged a rally in Dhinkia village in spite of  heavy rains. We reiterated our strong opposition against the recent move by the Naveen Patnaik government to acquire our land for the proposed POSCO steel plant project.  The State government is preparing to take over 700 acres of government land that had more than 500 betel vines  and about one lakh cashew trees belonging to our villagers. In order to acquire this  700 acres of forest land adjacent to Govindpur village, the company and the government are using the technique of “trap and divide” our people. However we are determined to defeat such designs by proving that we stand united.


It was decided at the meeting that to hold similar meetings in some other villages of the area, such as Gobindpur, Patana, and Nuagaon during this week  and  to prepare for a bigger rally at Batatikira at a later date. As you may know that at Batatikira, our villagers have been continuing daily with dharna since June 2011. The villagers have promised to foil any attempt by the government to acquire land for the POSCO. Our people had barricaded in many places to prevent the entry of officials in these areas.

We came to know from the media that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured the South Korean government that construction of the project would resume from July 2012 and had directed the state government to complete the initial formalities, including land acquisition for the project, at the earliest.


The latest move of the government and POSCO is to downsize the steel plant from 12 mt to 8-mt plant and thus the lad requirement from original 4004 acres is said to be reduced to 2700 acre of land. The government is saying that it will not acquire the private land for POSCO. Downsizing the plant and  non-acquisition of private land is meaningless, since it will still involve a huge takeover of 'government' land on which we have legal rights under Forest Rights Act 2006. Our people very well know this shrewd design of the government and POSCO to gradually acquire our fertile agricultural land and ruin our self- sustainable economy. The administration has not been able to acquire even a single acre of land all these years and will never be able to do so.


You may know that  the National Green Tribunal has suspended  the final 2011 environmental order on 30th March 2012.  The bench said   "The entire process was vitiated in the eyes of law". Ms. Jayanti Natarajan, Minister of Environmental and Forest (MOEF)  has recently formed a three member committee to review the environment clearance for the steel plant as per the order of  National Green Tribunal.  Shockingly, despite a direct and explicit direction from the NGT to ensure that the committee consists of “subject area experts”, it appears to be headed by an  Indian administrative Service (IAS) officer.  No doubt the Ministry will attempt to cover up its illegal actions again.   We are determined to continue our fight for the rights of peasants on their land, for our forests and natural resources, and against looting of our country's resources. We will always oppose this unjust project.