Road blockade costs Orissa economy Rs 4,000 crore

By Akshaya Kumar Sahoo

Bhubaneswar, March 15: The 431-day blockade of National Highway 200 at Kalinga Nagar in Orissa's Jajpur district has put the state economy under severe pressure.

The state economy, as per a rough estimate, has suffered a loss of more than Rs 4000 crores, apart from the loss of employment opportunities that could have been generated for thousands of local tribals.

Frequent violence at Kalinga Nagar, the steel hub of the country, have forced two leading steel companies to shift their projects from the region. Maharashtra Seamless Limited was first to go after it faced the wrath of tribals in September, 2005 during its ground breaking ceremony. Uttam Galva Limited did not enter the area as the tribals were blockading the road.

The cumulative loss of investment due to shifting of these two companies has been valued at Rs 3,800 crores. Now also it is not sure whether other companies who have signed memoranda of understanding with the state government will come up with their projects or not.

Apart from that the transportation of the iron and chrome ore was hampered due to the blockade. The NH-200 transports three million tonnes of chrome ore and concentrate and five million tonnes of iron ore annually.

With the NH-200 blocked by the tribals at Kalinga Nagar, the turcks were forced to pass through much crowded Jajpur road municipal area to reach their destinations. This created massive chaos inside Jajpur road leading to severe accidents and loss of precious lives including school going children.

This led to strong protests by the people of Jajpur road, which also resulted couple of Jajpur road bandhs. Due to pressure from both sides ( from NH-200 side and Jajpur road) transportation of mineral became a huge problem, which ultimately resulted in loss in productions in the surrounding iron ore and chrome ore mines in Daitary and Sukinda valley.

This reduction in production resulted in loss of employment for the local tribals working in these mines. Further, the trucks passing through Jajpur road had to cover an additional 40 km to reach their destination, which resulted in additional expenses of Rs 50 per tonne. Thus, the total economy loss due to circuitous transportation for the fourteen months works out to around Rs 50 crores.

Estimate reveals that the blockade resulted in a loss of 20 lakh man-days of employment for the local tribals and deprived them a better quality of life. It may be mentioned here that the tribals had been blockading the NH 200 in protest against the killing of 13 of their fellow people in police firing on January 2,2006. The unpleasant firing incident took place when the tribals clashed with the police opposing boundary wall construction of steel project.