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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Posco acquisition to test Dhinkia nerves by Manoj Kar

Posco acquisition to test Dhinkia nerves by Manoj Kar

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published Published on Jun 5, 2011   modified Modified on Jun 5, 2011
Brushing aside protests from a section of landowners, a determined district administration today stepped up its land acquisition drive in Gadakujang and Nuagaon gram panchayats.

Simultaneously, the authorities also worked out strategies for taking up the drive in the Dhinkia gram panchayat, the nerve-centre of anti-Posco movement.

“The land acquisition process was peaceful barring a few cases where people expressed unwillingness but we managed to prevail over them,” said special land acquisition officer Nrusingha Charan Swain.

On the other hand, allegations flew thick and fast that some of the landowners were forced to give away their plots against will. “They were awed by heavy deployment of police at the acquisition spot. The preventive arrest of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) vice-president and some others had created a fear psychosis amongst them. They parted with their vineyards to avoid possible arrest,” said PPSS general secretary Sisir Kumar Mahapatra.

Dismissing the forcible land acquisition charge, Paradip additional district magistrate Saroj Kanta Choudhury said: “Forty-eight betel vine owners turned up today and voluntarily gave up their claim over the betel yards. No force was used and the displaced people were not intimidated. About 7 acres of betel vineyard were reclaimed and Rs 75 lakh was disbursed to the landowners. With this, over 51 acre of encroached forestland has so far been acquired with the dismantling of 523 betel vineyards after the land acquisition work commenced on May 18. Rs 5.86 crore has been disbursed in form of account-payee cheques to 522 landlosers so far,” Choudhury told The Telegraph.

Trying to find ways of making an easy entry into the areas resisting the project, the district administration on Friday night was locked up in separate discussions with breakaway factions of the anti-plant PPSS and pro-plant United Action Committee at Erasama. Land acquisition is scheduled to begin in troubled Dhinkia in two or three days. Additional reinforcements are being made to counter the possible resistance by the anti-Posco brigade.

“Yesterday, there was separate talk with UAC members and groups of villagers from Dhinkia gram panchayat. The discussion centred around the peaceful acquisition of betel vineyards at Dhinkia in the coming days,” said Jagatsinghpur collector Narayan Chandra Jena. Yesterday’s meet had triggered a controversy as some of the representatives holding talks with the government had several cases against them.

“On March, 2010, the chief minister had invited us for a talk. Senior PPSS leaders like Sisir Mohapatra and Vasudev Behera were debarred from the meet then as non-bailable cases were pending against them. However, the administration has made mockery of law by talking to people with criminal antecedents at yesterday’s meet,” said PPSS chief Abhaya Sahu.

“The revenue divisional commission (central) had then asked the Jagatsinghpur collector not to send PPSS representatives who faced warrants or criminal cases for the talk with the chief minister. But the collector and other officials shamelessly invited people with a history of crime to yesterday’s meeting. About a dozen of people facing non-bailable warrants had turned up for the meeting,” alleged Sisir Kumar Mahapatra, general secretary and former sarpanch of Dhinkia gram panchayat.

“The meeting was hurriedly convened. We had little time to cross-check their antecedents. Besides, a large number of people have cases because of their involvement in the movement against the Posco project,” said Muralidhar Swain, block development officer of Erasama.

About 60 land owners, whose betel vineyards were pulled down in 2008, have begun a protest dharna at Gadakujang seeking compensation for the demolition of their vineyards then. Uneasy calm continues to prevail in several villages coming under the proposed steel project areas with a confrontation with the administration looming large.

The Telegraph, 4 June, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110605/jsp/orissa/story_14072286.jsp


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