File picture of workers felling a tree at the Posco project site

Paradip, June 3: The Jagatsinghpur district administration has decided to hand over the logs of felled trees to local settlers at villages on the site of the proposed Posco steel project even as the forest clearance drive has come to a halt following an order from the National Green Tribunal.

In the ongoing final phase of land acquisition for the steel project, over 15,000 trees were cut down in Gobindpur forest area in the past two months. The logs thus accumulated are being handed over to villagers, said an official.

The local settlers were entitled to a 20 per cent share of the trees cut down from the forest at the project site following a recommendation of the Rehabilitation and Peripheral Development Advisory Committee.

The rest of the logs were to be put up for auction.

However, it has now been decided that all the logs would be given to the people staying at villages near the forest, said officials.

The felling of forest classified and fruit-bearing trees in Gobindpur forest areas came to a halt last week after the National Green Tribunal stopped the process.

An official of the state-run Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) said the steel company has also consented to this.

Idco claimed to have acquired over 26,000 acres in Gadakujang, Noliasahi, Bhuyanpala, Bayanalkanda and Nuagaon villages.

Of the acquired land, 1,703 acres have already been officially transferred to the steel company.

The steel major initially required 4,003 acres. But it scaled down the requirement to 2,700 acres in view of the protest in Dhinkia village, the epicentre of the resistance movement against the South Korean steelmaker.

The final phase of the land acquisition exercise was suspended three days ago to give the officials engaged in the exercise a break.

“The administration has not carried on the process since the past three days. On Friday, the exercise was affected, as the betel vineyard owners did not turn up. So, no land could be acquired. The betel vineyard owners have some points of differences. It is being sorted out. We are hopeful of resuming the exercise tomorrow,” said Paradip additional district magistrate Surajit Das.