State to clear encroachers from Posco forest land

The land acquisition process for the Rs 54,000-crore Posco steel project in Orissa is expected to make some headway soon with the state government showing resolve to expedite the process.

In the first phase, it has been decided to evict the encroachers from the revenue land and forest land needed for the project.

After clearing the forest and revenue land of the encroachers, the district administration would kick off the process of acquisition of private land in Dhinkia and Gobindpur villages in Jagatsinghpur district.

This decision was taken at a review meeting conducted by Priyabrata Patnaik, chairman and managing director, Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa (Idco) with the district administration recently.

Besides Posco, Patnaik has asked the district administration to expedite the land acquisition process for other projects like Indian Farmers and Fertilizer Cooperative Limited (Iffco) and Essar Steel.

It may be noted, the land acquisition for the Posco project is yet to take off even after the company getting the clearance from the Union ministry of environment and forests due to the stiff resistance of the locals.

G W Sung, director, Posco; Saroj Mohapatra, the company's general manager; district rehabilitation officer, Surjeet Das, special land acquisition officer, Nrusingh Swain, Erasama block development officer. Murlidhar Swain and other officials were present at this meeting.

The district administration has decided to hold another meeting in the presence of the Idco chairman with the people affected by the Posco project. It was also decided that stern action would be taken against the persons who would create obstacle in the land acquisition process for Posco plant.

Out of 4004 acres of land required for the project, 3586 are state land and within this patch of state land, 2900 acres are categorized as forest land.

Posco India authorities have sought the cooperation of the district administration to demolish the betel vines and cashew crops from the encroached forest land and offer compensation to the affected farmers against crop loss.

The district administration would soon start discussions with the local villagers to give compensation.

While the Jagatsinghpur district administration is in favour of giving a compensation of Rs 10,000 per decimal for loss of betel vines, Posco officials have agreed to give Rs 8,000 per decimal.

As per the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy of the Orissa government, each betel vine farmer is entitled to a compensation of Rs 6000 per decimal of land.