Paradip, Dec. 7: Life of 34 pro-Posco families has returned to normal after seven years of virtual banishment at the Posco transit colony near Badabagpur.

After years of embittered relationships, camaraderie is back in the villages that had stood divided on conflicting stands over the Posco steel project.

The families have now returned to their native villages in Patana and Gobindpur with opponents of the project cooperating with them.

In 2007, those opposing the project had driven out around 56 families out of their houses from these villages for their support to the proposed steel venture.

The pro-Posco people were outnumbered by the opponents of the project in these villages, which were then regarded as the epicentre of the resistance movement against the steel project.

The families, who had earlier paid the price for supporting the steel project, are now slowly picking threads of their life with their homecoming.

'I am now leading a happy life. People, who were earlier my sworn enemies, have become friends. We are no more divided over the steel plant issue,' said Prakash Muduli, who had been driven out of the village.

'When we arrived here after seven years, I found my mud house damaged. It was not fit to live in. I rebuilt the house and the people of the village helped me,' he said.

'Initially, after we came back, some people were hesitant to maintain social relations with my family. But things gradually improved. Everyone is cordial towards us now. All the 34 families who have come back to the village from the Posco transit colony are happy,' said Prakash's wife Tikina.

'We treat them as fellow villagers now. Of course, there was animosity in the past, but we have moved on now,' said Gobindpur resident Adikanda Rout.

Erasama tehsildar Sarat Kumar Purohit said the families who had come back to their ancestral houses have all been sanctioned Rs 70,000 to rebuild their houses by the government.

Besides, all the families were provided with Rs 2,400 subsistence allowance for a month.

Twenty-two families have not shifted from the transit colony. 'We have appealed to them to leave the colony and return to their ancestral villages as situation is peaceful,' said the tehsildar.