Paradip, June 25: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh have made their ‘proxy’ appearance at the Posco site.
Children enacted street plays wearing the masks of Singh and Ramesh at the agitation site in Gobindpur village today.
The mask-wearing children of Gobindpur provided decent entertainment to the protesters, said Manorama Khatua, the women’s wing chief of anti-Posco movement.
Sandeep Pandey, recipient of Magsaysay award, today visited the project area to lend support to the ongoing resistance movement against the Korean steelmaker.
“The setting up of industry should not be at the cost of larger public interest. People here are leading decent life through multi-crop cultivation, betel vines growing and fisheries. The steel project would in no way compensate the loss of livelihood resources of the displaced villagers. Apprehending the grim future, people are stiffly resisting. The government ought to have taken notice of the ground conditions while giving go-ahead to the Posco project,” said Pandey.
The district administration, on the other hand, went ahead with building the project’s boundary wall besides doing ground-levelling and tree-felling exercises in Polang, Noliasahi, Bayanalakanda and Nuagaon villages. These villages, where land acquisition process is almost complete, has been largely free from people’s resistance.
“The Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation has undertaken the project-related works. Work is progressing smoothly under its supervision. We are providing them with logistic support. Besides, police have been deployed at the site for maintenance of law and order,” said additional district magistrate Saroj Kanta Choudhury.
Meanwhile, the bamboo and wooden barrier gates are back in Gobindpur and Dhinkia villages as the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) is anticipating resumption of land acquisition exercise in Dhinkia, the epicentre of the resistance movement.
“People here have launched peaceful agitation as they have been doing it for past six years. But they are now apprehensive that government officials, flanked by armed police, would resort to use of force to trample down the democratic movement. So, they have vowed to protect their land from ‘trespassers’ and would now guard the Dhinkia gram panchayat from all corners. Barrier gates are again put in place in two places to stop the officials’ teams. The gates would be manned and guarded by villagers round-the-clock,” said Sisir Kumar Mahapatra, former sarpanch, Dhinkia gram panchayat.
However, the officials brushed aside fears and maintained that land acquisition would take place from willing people by consent and not by force. “The administration is acting with utmost restraint and we are trying our level best to avoid any confrontation. There is no plan to gain forceful entry into the villages under Dhinkia gram panchayat,” said Choudhury.
