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Hold public debate on POSCO: Medha

BHUBANESWAR: Demanding cancellation of the proposed mega steel project of POSCO-India, social activist Medha Patkar on Thursday said the Naveen Patnaik Government should hold a public debate on the issue.

At a press conference here, Ms. Patkar challenged the government’s claim that the project would create employment opportunities and help the State earn good revenue.

“We are ready to participate if Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik organises a public debate on the POSCO project as well as the people’s agitations against industries in parts of the State,” she said.

“Development of Orissa with an investment of Rs. 52,000 crores by a foreign MNC, revenue and export earnings and jobs (18,000 by 2014) to unemployed are the reasons cited for justification of the project. Not one reason withstands a detailed scrutiny,” Ms. Patkar said in a statement that was released to the media.

She said that the jobs were merely numbered with no descriptions and categorisation as permanent-temporary or requirements and no guarantee to the affected was clear from POSCO’s proposal to the Board of Approval.

The loss of employment to at least 30,000 workers in the three gram panchayats of Dhinkia, Gadakujang and Nuagaon in Jagatsinghpur and Khandadhar forest where POSCO was likely to get iron ore mines on lease cannot be compensated with alternative jobs, Ms. Patkar added.

Ms. Patkar visited the area earmarked for the POSCO steel plant in Jagatsinghpur on Tuesday and Wednesday. Her visit to the area was opposed by the pro-project activists in the villages of Nuagaon and Gobindpur on the ground that she was an outsider.

Extending her support to the agitation against land acquisition for the proposed steel plant in Jagatsinghpur, Ms. Patkar said a vast majority of people to be affected were against losing their land and livelihood sources to make space for the steel plant.

She further demanded that threat and violence through politicians and goons in the three gram panchayats should be withdrawn without delay.

The government should plan Orissa’s development with the people and not multinational companies, she said. The gram sabhas must be consulted for the equitable and sustainable alternative plans with agriculture, pisciculture and labour-intensive industrialisation in the area, she said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Naveen Patnaik reacted to Ms. Patkar’s demand for withdrawal of police from POSCO site saying that the police had been deployed there to maintain peace in the area.

Senior Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Gurudas Dasgupta is likely to visit the POSCO project area on Saturday.

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