Balangir, April 10: Tension gripped the Lower Suktel Irrigation Project site at Pardhiapali as police and anti-dam activists, including women and schoolchildren, clashed today.

On the third consecutive day of protest, three women members of the Lower Suktel Budi Anchal Sangram Parishad suffered injuries in a face-off with the cops.

While the police had yesterday arrested 70 activists, another 10 were taken into custody today.

Sixty-eight of those arrested yesterday, began an indefinite hunger strike to protest against police action and demanded halt to project work.

Balangir superintendent of police R. Prakash said the situation was normal at the project site and denied injury to any woman activist.

“As some activists tried to rush towards the project site, we arrested 10 of them. There was no tussle between the cops and the activists. Work on the project is going on smoothly,” Prakash said.

Even as the protests go on, the Odisha Construction Corporation (OCC), entrusted with construction of the project, began work on the spillway.

Executive engineer of the OCC Trilochan Das said the layout of the spillway had been completed.

Though chief minister Naveen Patnaik had laid the project’s foundation in 2001 to provide irrigation to about 31,830 hectares in Balangir and Sonepur districts, it got stuck in the tussle between pro-dam and the anti-dam groups.

Senior Congress leader Narasingha Mishra said he wanted the project to be over at the earliest. “I want the project, but not over the dead bodies of the people. The government can’t displace people before paying them full compensation and rehabilitation,” he said.

General secretary of the Parishad Satya Banchhor said the government had forcibly started the project work without taking the villagers into confidence.

On the other hand, the pro-dam Lower Suktel Irrigation Action Committee today held a meeting and lauded resumption of the project work. General secretary of the outfit Santosh Pradhan promised to extend all support to the project. “