3-year job wait for NMDC project-affected in Chhattisgarh

838 people eligible to get job in upcoming steel plant in Bastar

The Chhattisgarh government has said that the process of providing jobs to people affected by the upcoming National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) steel plant in the state would be completed by 2017.

“Under the rehabilitation policy of the state government, 838 nominated members of the 369 account holders affected by the NMDC project had been found eligible for jobs and the process would be completed by 2017,” Chhattisgarh’s revenue minister Premprakash Pandey said on Wednesday. He was replying to a call attention notice moved by Santosh Bafna of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

NMDC, as part of its expansion, value addition and forward integration programme, is setting up a 3 MTPA capacity greenfield integrated steel plant in Nagarnar, located 16 km from the divisional headquarters of Bastar, with an estimated outlay of Rs 15,525 crore.

The land for the plant had been acquired and 8 major packages of the steel plant have already been awarded at a cost of around Rs 12,000 crore. The project is based on HiSmelt technology and NMDC expects to commission the plant in three years once construction commences, as against the six years required in conventional plants.

Bafna alleged that a 1,000 acres of land were acquired from 1,052 account holders, but the names of half of the affected people had been deleted for jobs, citing they did not fulfil the criteria under the state government’s rehabilitation policy 2007. He said the project-affected people were having a tough time, with starvation being reported in a few places.

The minister, however, denied any such situation prevailing in Nagarnar and said there was no resentment among the people after not getting jobs. Pandey said they were not aware of any starvation deaths among the project affected people in Nagarnar.

He, however, assured that the state government would ensure that the eligible people would get job in the NMDC plant.