Displaced families at Gopalpur demand more compensation

The people displaced for the Tata Steel’s shelved steel project at Gopalpur about 15 years back have demanded compensation as per the Orissa government's Rehabilitation & Resettlement (R&R) policy-2006.

Besides, these displaced persons have demanded a monthly allowance of Rs 2,000 to each family. The demands have been raised on the eve of a public hearing scheduled on Tuesday for the Rs 15,000-crore industrial park to be developed by the steel maker at the same location.

Around 800 families of five villages-Badapur, Patrapur, Sindhigon, Paikapada and some families of Kalipalli were displaced when Tata Steel had acquired 3,000 acres of land in 1994 to set up a steel plant at Gopalpur.

It later shelved the project and decided to build an industrial park there.

Ahead of the public hearing, the Ganjam district administration had convened a meeting at Chhatrapur in which the displaced people aired their grievances.

Officials of the district administration, Tata Steel, the local MLA and MP were presented in the meeting which was presided over by the district collector Krishan Kumar.

“The land acquisition process is still on for the company’s Gopalpur project. So, we have demanded that the company should compensate the affected people for the project as it compensated the people for its Kalinganagar project,” said Ramesh Mahakuda, one of the displaced persons. “We want that the R&R policy-2006 of the state government should be implemented for this project,” he said.

The displaced families also demanded that the mega steel plant be set up on the same land instead of the industrial park. “We had given land with a dream of a steel plant coming up there,” said Mahakuda.

The representatives of the displaced families, who were rehabilitated in the company's settlement colony, also demanded the compensation arrears be paid to them at a rate of Rs 15,000 per month per family as they had lost their livelihood after being uprooted from their villages.

“We fully support the displaced persons and the company should come forward to meet their demands,” said Gopalpur MLA Pradeep Kumar Panigrahi.

The district collector assured the displaced families to examine the issues and take up the same with the government and the company. The infrastructure problems in the settlement colony would be solved very soon, Kumar said. He also assured that a meeting would be held every three months to solve the problems of the colony.