Mittal too shares Posco fate of protest

By Akshaya Kumar Sahoo & Binita Jaiswal Bhubaneswar, Dec. 26: Even as the bureaucrats, industrialists, ruling BJD-BJP leaders celebrated in their own ways Orissa government’s pact with the global steel giant L.N. Mittal to set up mega steel plant in the state, nearly one thousand people – who are most likely to displaced by the project – were reportedly shedding tears as news reached to them their villages would disappear from the demographic map of Orissa. The people of Patna in Keonjhar district, about 350 km from here, on Saturday marched to the local tehsildar's office in protest and urged the authorities not to displace them and transfer the project to some barren and uninhabited land. Reports from Keonjhar said there is resentment brewing among the people against Arcelor Mittal company and its Rs 40,000-crore steel plant. Government sources said the Arcelor Mittal plant is expected to displace hundreds of farmers. A primary estimate says nearly 5000 people will be displaced if the government goes ahead with its plan to acquire 8000 acres of land for Arcelor Mittal's proposed 12-million-tonne steel plant. The protesters, who came from 17 villages, submitted a memorandum, objecting to the location of the plant. They pleaded that the state's rehabilitation policy would not compensate them adequately for the land they will give up, saying that the rehabilitation and reconstruction (R&R) policy will not be able to give them an acceptable alternative and therefore they want the plant to be located elsewhere. In the 20-page document in Oriya, the villagers have punched holes in the government's new policy. They have pointed out several contradictions in it and say that the new policy is worse than the land acquisition act formulated by British in 1894, giving instances of the loopholes and objectionable features of the R&R policy. Rehabilitation is not the only problem. The plant will consume four cubic metres of water for every tonne of steel it produces. Water in the local Baitarani river, as experts point out, will not be enough. Under such a circumstance, the plant is likely to tap groundwater sources. And that will mean further deprivation for the farmers and the environment, say the experts. South Korean steel giant Pohang Steel Company Limited (Posco) which signed an MoU with the state government 18 months ago for establishment of a Rs 52,000 crore steel plant near the port town of Paradip, is also facing a similar kind of protests by the local people, especially the local farmers and betel growers. Over 4,000 people are going to be displaced by the Posco project.