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The Union ministry of environment and forests on Tuesday put out an 'update' on the integrated steel plant and captive port of Posco India Pvt Ltd, with hints at stopping the Orissa government from transferring 1,253 hectares of forest land to the company for non-compliance of conditions laid down in the final approval of land diversion given on December 29, 2009.
Sources said that the update is to nail the lie of the state government that no compensation and rehabilitation of the tribals and other forest dwellers was required as none exist on the land to be given for the project.
The conditional approval had stressed that the project can go ahead only after all the 15 conditions are met and that includes the consent of the tribal people and other traditional forest dwellers as per the provisions of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
The ministry wrote a letter to the Orissa government on January 8 seeking a clarification on the consent clause as it became aware of the tribals and local people refusing to accept the rehabilitation package of the company to vacate their cultivable land.
The state government, however, took a stand in its reply on March 16 that there are no tribal people in the proposed Posco area either cultivating or residing in the forest land and that no other traditional forest dwellers are in possession or cultivating land since last three generations (75 years).
The ministry, however, smelt a rat as the whole proceedings of settlement of the rights under the 2006 Forest Right Act were in Oriya language and so it wrote back on April 15 to provide an English translation. This appears to have put the state government in a spot and it has not yet responded.
Posco India had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Navin Patnaik government in Orissa back in 2007 to invest Rs 51,000 crore (Rs 510 billion) in a 12 metric tonne per annum capacity steel plant in Jagatsinghpur district near Paradip port, but its project has been held up for over three years for want of land that the state government had promised to provide.
In June 2007, the Orissa government sought permission to convert forest land for the project. The ministry granted 'in principle' permission on September 19, 2008 but with 13 conditions to be fulfilled.
On December 3, 2009, the state government submitted a compliance report on these conditions and secured a final approval from the ministry for diversion on December 29, 2009.
The ministry, however, piled up 15 conditions to be met before the land could be transferred to the company and it is now trying to make use of these conditions to prevent the project from going ahead.
Besides care of tribals, the conditions include afforestation by the company, no labour camps in the forest area, free supply of coal or fuel to labourers working on the project side to prevent wood cutting from adjacent forests, no damage to flora and fauna in the area, and that the fishing community of Nolia Sahi will get financial aid and access to the sea from the company.
Orissa allows CPI meet
Meanwhile, the Orissa government has decided to allow CPI general secretary A B Bardhan to address a meeting at the entry point to South Korean steel major Posco's proposed mega plant near Paradip where police action against protestors on May 15 had sparked a national outcry.
"The government will allow the CPI leader to hold a meeting at Balitutha," chief minister's principal secretary Bijay Patnaik told reporters after a review meeting on the situation in Balitutha.
The police had on May 15 cleared the area of anti-Posco agitators camping since January 26 resisting land acquisition for the project, by making lathi-charge, firing teargas shells and rubber bullets.
BJP delegation visits Balitutha
The Bharatiya Janata Party has demanded a CBI probe into the police action against tribals at the Kalinganagar industrial hub and Posco's proposed plant site near Paradip.
"We want CBI to probe both the Kalinganagar incident, in which a tribal died, as also police action against anti-Posco activists at Balitutha near Paradip last week," Rajya Sabha member Balbir Punj, who led a BJP parliamentary delegation that visited both the areas, told reporters in Balitutha.
Additional inputs: PTI