Thaindian News

Bhubaneswar, July 1 (IANS) The Orissa government said Friday it is likely to resume work at the site of the $12 billion Posco project as a group of protesting villagers have assured their cooperation.

Work such as cutting of trees and levelling of land has been stopped for the past one week in the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur after hundreds of villagers under the banner of United Action Committee (UAC) refused to allow in officials until their six-point charter of demands was met.

The demands include hike in compensation, proper rehabilitation of the displaced and involvement of local people in the construction activities. The breakthrough came after local officials held several rounds of discussion with the leaders of the committee to resolve the impasse.

“The discussion was fruitful,” Additional District Magistrate S.K. Choudhuri told IANS. He said the villagers agreed to cooperate after assurance that their grievances would heard. “We will resume work tomorrow (Saturday),” he said.

Orissa signed a pact with the South Korean steel major in 2005 for the 12 million tonne annum steel project near port town of Paradip, about 120 km from here, the largest foreign investment in India.

At least 2,900 acres of the 4,004 acres of land required for the project is forest land. Authorities said villagers have encroached upon large patch of the forest land illegally and they need to be vacated.

The project has been facing opposition from two major groups - the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) and UAC. While the PPSS has been demanding complete withdrawal of the project from the area, the UAC has been supporting the project with certain conditions.

Protesters who have formed a barricade since early June near Govindpur village to prevent entry of officials to the land yet to be acquired, said they have been holding the lands for generations and once the land is acquired, they will lose their agro-based sustainable livelihood.

The government, which halted land acquisition June 14 in the troubled area after protests, said it is now focusing on the area already acquired. It said the total area of lands already acquired would be nearly 2,000 acres.