Damodar Sarangi, who heads the human rights panel, at a village near the proposed Posco project site. Telegraph picture

Paradip, April 26: A delegation of the National Human Rights Commission visited the proposed Posco site today.

Those opposing as well as supporting the steel project drew the attention of the commission on non-implementation of rehabilitation and alternate livelihood package by governmental agencies.

Issues such as loss of livelihood stakes and predicament of land losers and displaced families, absence of the alternate livelihood package were brought to the fore.

The commission panel headed by Damodar Sarangi went round the project-affected villages to see the loss of permanent livelihood stakes of people and measures initiated to rehabilitate the land losers and displaced families.

“The team visited places such as Polang, Posco transit colony at Badanagpur, Gobindpur, Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Nolia Sahi. They spoke to people and heard their grievances. A section of people in some villages drew the panel’s attention through written petitions. The members held discussion on various issues with the state government officials,” said special land acquisition officer Sarat Kumar Purohit, who accompanied the team.

Fifty-two families in the Posco transit colony made a plea before the panel members and sought the commission’s intervention for early end to their plight. “We were driven out of our ancestral houses six years ago by anti-Posco activists. We are living like refugees in the transit camp. The government is insensitive to our plight. It is paying meagre Rs 20 per head for sustenance. We want to go back to our village,” said Chandan Mohanty, a resident of the colony.

“People here are living under constant threat of losing their permanent source of livelihood from betel cultivation and cropland. The police have foisted false cases against those opposing the project. Fearing possible arrest, opponents of the project have confined themselves within the village boundary. Taking villagers to nearby hospitals for treatment is a risky proposition. Both the civil administration and the police have unleashed terror in the region,” said Manorama Khatua from Dhinkia gram panchayat.

A cross-section of people, in favour of the plant, were cynical of governmental steps to expedite the project.

“The residents have been agitating for the revision of six-charter livelihood support and land compensation package since the past two years. The government agencies are tight lipped. The betel vineyard owners have nothing to do after the demolition of their vines. The labourers have not been paid any assistance so far. They are reduced migrant labourers searching for daily wage in neighbouring Paradip,” said Nirvaya Samantray, general secretary of the United Action Committee, a pro-Posco outfit.