Bowing down to pressure from various Opposition political parties and civil society organisations, the Orissa government on Wednesday put off the land acquisition process for the 12-million-tonne Posco India integrated steel project at Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district.
The government also withdrew the 14 platoons of police forces it deployed at Gobinpur village, a part of the project site, as demanded by leaders of various political parties and Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), the local CPI-backed anti-displacement forum.
“Today, we dismantled at least 14 betel gardens and distributed `26 lakhs in cheques to the local people. At around 12.30 pm, we discontinued the land acquisition process as demanded by the PPSS leaders,” collector Satya Kumar Mallick, who was present during the eviction drive, told at the project site.
Sources said the district administration was forced to halt the land acquisition as over 2,000 anti-displacement people along with schoolchildren rushed to the site to oppose demolition of the betel gardens raised on government lands. With no immediate solution in hand on how to handle the large protesting crowd, the collector switched over to a reconciliatory mode and held talks with the PPSS activists led by its president Abhaya Sahoo.
Mr Sahoo sought immediate withdrawal of the police forces and arrest of senior state government official — Sangram Mohapatra — who allegedly beat up some anti-displacement protesters on Tuesday.
“After holding discussions with the PPSS leaders, we have stopped the land acquisition work for now. An inquiry has been ordered into the allegation of the government official beating up the protesters on Tuesday. We have informed higher authorities about today’s development and waiting for further instructions,” the collector said.
After the police withdrew from Gobindpur and land acquisition was stopped, Mr Sahoo went back to Patna village where he is sitting on a hungerstrike since Tuesday opposing the land acquisition.
The state government, which has till today acquired 2,000 acres of land, wants to get hold of another 700 acres of land required for the first phase construction work of the `52,000-crore foreign direct investment (FDI) project.
The fate of the country’s largest FDI project hangs because of strong resistance by the local people who are in possession of the government land for centuries and raised betel gardens, dug ponds for aquaculture and cultivating rice on them.