Paradip, June 22: People who gave their land for the Rs 30,000-crore oil refinery project here have threatened to launch an indefinite agitation to protest against the Indian Oil Corporation Limited’s alleged failure to properly rehabilitate them.

About 143 families displaced by the project have alleged that neither have they been rehabilitated in a resettlement colony nor provided permanent employment which they were assured, though the oil company is all set to commission the refinery by September.

“The company acquired 3,344 acres in 2002 from local landowners at throwaway prices. But it has not yet provided resettlement or full-time employment to the evictees,” said Satyananda Panda, advisor of the East Odisha Industrial Development Council, an organisation that fights for the cause of the displaced and the land-losers.

However, company officials refuted the charges saying that the resettlement package had been provided.

General manager (human resources) of the oil refinery project, W.R. Borbara said: “The families have been provided with 10 decimal homestead land at Dhinkia. Peripheral development activity of neighbouring villages has also been undertaken by the oil company. The members of the displaced families have also been engaged in construction on contractual basis.”

Additional district magistrate Surajit Das said the administration was looking into the people’s grievances.