The proposed Posco steel plant’s project area in Jagatsinghpur. Telegraph picture

Paradip, July 27: The situation was back on the boil today at the proposed Posco steel plant’s project area with an angry mob holding two personnel of the South Korean steel giant hostage for nearly four hours. They were, however, released following police intervention.

“Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) and the Jagatsinghpur district administration are engaged in the land acquisition process. The Posco personnel had no business here. Even then they are frequenting the area with the support of the police and administration. This has angered the people. Today’s act of detaining the company personnel was a manifestation of people’s growing anger,” said Bhaskar Swain, sarpanch of Nuagaon gram panchayat.

The Posco personnel were later released following intervention by district officials.

“There was some disturbance at Balisahi village which falls in Nuagaon gram panchayat. Two Posco personnel were held by a section of villagers. But, they were released after our intervention,” said Kujang tehsildar Vasudev Pradhan.

A senior Posco official, S.N. Singh, however, said: “Company officials were forced to rush to the spot as a section of villagers were erecting dykes near a water body. They were falsely claiming compensation for prawn farms. Deploying machines, dykes were being built unlawfully. The entire exercise has been videographed. There was some exchange of words between the company officials and the villagers.”

Yesterday, the protesting villagers had burnt down the effigy of South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak, who had sought the Indian government’s support for expediting the Posco project.

Today, the forest clearance exercise was disrupted for the third consecutive day after technical snags recurred. Tree-felling machines were defunct again today.

“There was a recurrence of technical snags in sawing machines today. Four teams comprising Idco, revenue, horticulture, agriculture and forest department personnel were on the job to expedite the tree-felling process. In spite of our best efforts, however, we managed to pull down only 1,400 forest trees in Nuagaon forest area,” said special land acquisition officer Nrusingha Charan Swain.

“Precious time is being lost for the much-delayed steel project because of the defunct sawing machines. Idco is the nodal agency for acquiring land for the project. We are simply assisting them in the exercise. The responsibility lies with them to ensure that sawing machines in perfect working condition are put in place,” said an official of the district administration.