NEW DELHI: The former Prime Minister, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, on Thursday announced a plan to `gherao' the Reliance Energy Limited's controversy-dogged 3,740 MW plant in Dadri, near here.

Mr. Singh said Jan Dal and Jan Morcha volunteers, accompanied by activists from other parties, including the CPI and the CPI (M), would enter the complex on July 8 and symbolically plough the land in protest against a project that symbolised the "coming together of State power and corporate sector power."

Mr. Singh said the plant, scheduled to go on stream in 2006-07, appeared to have been indefinitely delayed. This despite the Uttar Pradesh Government having gone out on a limb to help the corporate group.

The Rs. 10,000-crore plant, said to be the world's largest gas-based power project, was launched with much fanfare in 2004. However, the project was soon in trouble thanks to uncertain gas supplies and charges of favouritism by the Mulayam Singh Government.

Mr. Singh said the Uttar Pradesh Government had acquired 2,500 acres of land, including village common land, for the company under a State Support Agreement that required the State Government to bear 60 per cent of the cost of acquisition.

"This is unprecedented. The company has been donated land forcibly acquired from poor farmers. This is outright favouritism and misuse of public money."

The former Prime Minister said it was legitimate for a government to acquire land for public causes — to build hospitals or schools. But in this case, the Government had done so to help a rich corporate group: "This is scandalous. How can the Government take money from the poor and pay the rich? And where indeed is the project? Who is to pay for the delay?"

Mr. Singh wanted to know if the Uttar Pradesh Government had included a penalty clause in the agreement. The example of Enron was a warning to governments against entering into hasty contracts without adequate safeguards. He said the objective of the gherao was to demand the return of common land made over to the company and to do fair by those affected.

Mr. Singh said land was not just a means of production, "it is a place of sovereignty. It is a political issue."

He alleged that Uttar Pradesh had been taken over by the corporate sector, which was building "high-tech cities on agricultural land across the State — from Lucknow to Kanpur."

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