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Since 26 January this year the farmers have been carrying out their peaceful protest against fresh attempts by the Naveen Patnaik regime to acquire their land on behalf of the South Korean steel corporation.

“We are expecting police action any time soon including an attack on our leader Abhay Sahoo by goons hired by the company,” said a spokesperson of the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samithi (PPSS), which has spearheaded the agitation against the project for the past five years.

Over 30,000 farmers are expected to lose their lands and livelihood if the US$12 billion project, billed as India’s largest Foreign Direct Investment, is implemented. POSCO signed an MoU with the Orissa government in mid-2005, for the setting up of an integrated steel and power plant, a private port and mining of over 600 million tonnes of Orissa’s high grade iron ore.

In a report in Financial Express, Dilip Bisoi wrote from the ground that:

“The resettlement and rehabilitation package of Posco-India for the plant at Jagatsinghpur is in line with the Orissa government’s R&R Rules 2006, which is regarded as one of the best R&R policies in the country,” says Posco-India General Manager (external relations) Simanta Mohanty. “We are confident that everybody in our project area will be at an advantage with our package. Our package is specially oriented towards landless labour and we have made special provisions for employment of those needing jobs. We are compensating those who have planted betel vines on government land and we are sure they will see that we are giving them a fair deal,” he adds. Over the past three months, the Patnaik government, too, has given a push to the land acquisition process, but villagers will need a lot of convincing before they give up their land.

In neighbouring Govindpur, children play cricket, imagining the ball to be Posco-India. Every time a batsman hits the ball hard, a cheer goes up. The villagers of Govindpur are quite militant in their opposition to the project, considered to be the country’s largest FDI.

Four years of agitation have changed the lives of villagers living in Posco’s proposed site. For villagers, guarding the gates has become a daily chore. All their discussions revolve around the Posco project. Womenfolk do their household work, but with an eye on the main street for Posco executives or government officials. Posco officials are often detained for a few hours by villagers.

The two villages of Govindpur and Dhinkia are at the heart of the site and this is where the dictates of the Posco Pratirodha Sangaram Samiti (PPSS), the organisation that is spearheading the anti-project movement, runs. PPSS has virtually converted the 4,004 acres into a fort, with 17 gates plugging all the roads to the core area. No gates open without the permission of PPSS. The PPSS chief, Abhaya Sahoo, guards the main gate at Balitutha, the entry point to the Posco site. The PPSS network is quite strong. When government officials or Posco company executives start from Bhubaneswar for Jagatsinghpur, Sahoo gets the information, and villagers are alerted immediately.

With the forest clearance coming through, and Lee’s visit putting the project onto the fast track, the Jagatsinghpur Collector has put out ads asking betel vine owners to claim compensation and give up the land. Interestingly, the 4,004 acres is part of a vast stretch of land that was added to the mainland when the sea receded, so the landscape is dotted with huge sand mounds. The government says the reclaimed land is government land but people have lived here for generations.

Over the years, the forests too have disappeared—first the mangroves and then the casuarina plantations, destroyed by a super cyclone. Now, villagers grow betel vines and cashew on the high lands and have converted the low laying areas to paddy fields. “The paddy field gives us rice for the whole year and the betel vines the cash to buy other items,” says Ramesh Mohanty. “We will not allow the Posco project to come up on this site,” says PPSS chief Abhaya Sahoo. “No rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) policy is acceptable to us,” he points out.

When you argue that Posco-India has promised to give a better package than the R&R package announced by the state government, Dhinkia sarpanch Sisira Mohapatra, who is also the general secretary of PPSS, shows you the R&R package of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for the oustees of Paradip Refinery project. A vacant plot of seven acres, earmarked with concrete pillars outside village Dhinka, is the so-called rehabilitation colony. The abandoned, dilapidated facility centre (hospitals, schools and temples) isn’t assuring villagers.

“We have seen the R&R package of a public sector company. How do we trust a foreign private company?” Mohapatra shoots back. The stories of promises not kept and the success of people’s movements like the
anti-missile test range agitation of Baliapal have kept the resistance against Posco alive. But the Orissa government too has made a heap of promises to Posco-India which it will find very difficult to walk away
from.

For the steel and power plants alone the project needs around 4004 acres, of which 3566 acres is government owned forest and revenue land but 438 acres belongs to local farmers who are refusing to part with it. The PPSS apprehends that over 25 platoons of police are being brought in to surround the farmers sitting on dharna at Balitutha, which is at the entrance to the land that belongs to them.

As per a letter issued by the Collector of Jagatsinghpur District on January 19 this year Palli Sabhas in the project area have been asked to obtain approval of local bodies about the ‘diversion of their lands under forest category to POSCO’ by February 10th. On February 3 however, at a meeting of Palli Sabha of Nuagaon village all the 700 participants unanimously disapproved of the move. In a resolution passed at the Palli Sabha they said  that such lands were being used by people for cultivation and housing since last 300 years and in no case they can be handed over to POSCO.  Other Palli Sabhas in the area are expected to pass similar resolutions.

PPSS activists say, faced with the firm opposition to the POSCO project and land acquisition the Orissa adminstration is getting desperate and plans to remove the farmers by force. On February 1 the state government issued a notice in various newspapers that if the people fail to file  their claims for compensation within fifteen days, they will get nothing at all.

The PPSS dharna has found support around the country with leaders of trade unions and people’s movements visiting the protestors sitting on dharna. Those participating in the dharna include leaders of leaders of the All India Trade Union Congress from different states  and the Orissa Bidi Workers  and Domestic Workers Associations.

For further information contact:
Prashant Paikray, spokesperson, PPSS at Ph: (0) 9437571547.