New rehabilitation package for Tata Steel's Gopalpur project

Affected families were compensated according to guidelines issued by state revenue department in 1996

The Odisha government has decided to revisit the rehabilitation benefits provided to over 2,200 affected families of Tata Steel’s Gopalpur project, who lost their land to the project in mid-’90s.   

The affected families were compensated according to the guidelines issued by the state revenue department in 1996. But with the steel maker shelving the steel plant proposed at the location, the affected families were unable to bag jobs. This had sparked resentment among the affected families who had of late been demanding higher compensation in lieu of their ceded lands.

“The Ganjam district administration is preparing a revised rehabilitation package for the affected families of the Gopalpur project. The revised package will be announced after a government order,” minister for revenue & disaster management S N Patra said in reply to issues raised by local legislators on compensation issues of the project.

The district administration has also been asked to constitute a new Rehabilitation & Periphery Development Advisory Committee (RPDAC) for the project, the minister said.

It may be noted that MLAs from Ganjam district – Pradeep Panigrahy, Adikanta Sethi, PC Sethi and R C Chhau Pattnaik had raised the matter relating to compensation of Gopalpur project oustees in the assembly.

Pointing out that the compensation offered to affected families was inadequate, the legislators said, had the company started project operations, people would have been employed there.

The MLAs demanded compensation for affected families as per the new rehabilitation package.

Since the land allotted for the Gopalpur project remained un-utilised for over a decade, the affected families could not get benefits from the project, said Panigrahy, the Gopalpur MLA.

“I come from one of the affected families. The local people want setting up the plant. As the project is not coming up, we are being denied benefits,” he said.

The project affected people demanded that they should be compensated as per the state government’s rehabilitation & resettlement policy-2006 since the project was yet to be executed. After shelving its steel project at Gopalpur, Tata Steel has proposed an industrial park at the same location on an area of 2,952 acres. As anchor tenant, Tata Steel has proposed to construct a 50,000 tonne per annum (tpa) ferrochrome plant and one 400,000 tpa rebar mill there at a combined cost of Rs 1,000 crore. The two projects would initially create employment for 1,000 people.

However, the state government is still in a dilemma whether the land transfer deed needs to be executed in the name of Tata Steel or Gopalpur Special Economic Zone (SEZ). This has affected progress of work on the industrial park. Such uncertainties continue despite the fact that the steel maker has taken advanced possession of land and is almost through with boundary wall construction.