Paradip, March 13: The villagers who have been opposing the 12 -million-tonne steel plant proposed to be set up by Posco took out a rally today and renewed their resolve to fight against the project.

“We will not allow the steel plant to come up in earmarked villages. It could come up only over the bodies of unarmed people fighting against displacement. The villagers have legitimate rights over the land under the Forest Rights Act,” said Abhaya Sahu, president of Posco Pratirodh Sangarm Samiti, which has been spearheading the anti-Posco agitation.

With signs of resistance movement losing ground, today’s rally was organised by the Samiti at Balitutha on the fringes of the proposed steel project area in an apparent bid to galvanise the dwindling support base.

Recently, a section of the villagers in Dhinkia gram panchayat, the epicentre of anti-Posco steel plant movement, had expressed their willingness to hand over their land for the project in exchange of a better compensation package.

But the turnout in today’s rally was hardly impressive as even as Samiti activists vowed to fight against the Korean project with renewed vigour.

As the ministry of environment and forests’s (MoEF) final decision on the conditional clearance accorded earlier to the steel project is still awaited, a confederation of anti-displacement groups had earlier given the call for ‘Dhinkia chalo’ to express their solidarity to anti-Posco agitation.

“The state government is protecting the steel major’s interest while ignoring the livelihood and economic interest of people thriving on farming, betel vines and pisciculture.

“We hope that the MoEF does not become a party to the violation of law by the state government while arriving its final decision on the project,” said anti-displacement and civil right activists while addressing the rally.

“Villagers are laying claim over their ancestral land. This has been taken note of both Saxsena and Meena Gupta, constituted by the MoEF. Both the committees have made it amply clear that Forest Rights Act had not been properly implemented in respect of other traditional forest dwellers. Making mockery of law, the state government still sticks to its stand that the area has no other traditional forest dwellers,” alleged the activists.