After halting land acquisition at the proposed plant site areas of POSCO steel project near Paradip,Odisha government recently announced plans to resume land acquisition tomorrow after a gap of 1 year.
Mr SK Mallick collector of Jagatsinghpur district said that"State government has decided to start activities at proposed plant site villages from tomorrow.We have already taken consent of local people before beginning work."
The district Collector and senior officers held a meeting with local people at Nuagaon village.Mr Mallick said that"The villagers are ready to cooperate with the government's effort to acquire additional 700 acre of land required for the mega steel project."
The activities were halted at the proposed plant site area since December 14th 2011 following the killing of a man over construction of coastal road to connect Dhinkia area of Jagatsinghpur district.The state government's efforts to resume activities also further suffered due a suspension of the forest and environmental clearance by the National Green Tribunal on March 29th 2012.
The collector said that however,the state government had meanwhile managed to make people understand the need of POSCO's INR 52,000 crore project,adding that officials of the district administration and Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation would visit Nuagaon and Gobindpur village tomorrow.
The officials were asked to start payment of compensation amount among the farmers whose betel vines and other horticulture garden were demolished for the project.
The state government,which had so far acquired above 2,000 acre of land,requires another 700 acre land for start of the 8 million tonne per annum steel mill in two phases.
Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti,a CPI backed body,which had been opposing the project from the day one,said that the administration can not go for land acquisition activities when the matter was pending in the National Green Tribunal.
Mr Abhay Sahu president of PPSS said that"Since NGT has suspended all activities,it is illegal on part of the state government to announce resumption of the process at the proposed plant site."
