Villagers oppose survey work at Posco site

Tension prevailed at the Nuagaon panchayat, in the project site of Posco’s mega steel mill in Jagatsinghpur district, as the police resorted to lathicharge to disperse anti-Posco activists who staged a road blockade and attacked the surveyors conducting socio-economic survey of the project.

The villagers snatched the survey documents from the Kujang tahsildar and revenue inspector who were leading the survey work in Nuagaon area.

As many as 12 persons including Nuagaon sarpanch, Bhaskar Swain were injured in the lathi charge. Three of them are stated to be seriously hurt. They are Lokanath Samal, Nibas Samantray and Lokanath Samantray. The police have arrested two persons in connection with the incident.

After lathicharge, the agitators fled from the spot while the police rescued the surveyors from the village. In spite of protest, survey work is continuing and six platoons of police forces have been deployed to bring normalcy and ensure peaceful survey in this panchyat, said deputy superintendent of police, Santanu Das.

However, the district rehabilitation officer Surjeet Das said, the survey work has been hampered in Nuagaon due to protests by the irate villagers and only 55 families of this panchayat have been covered in the survey by the six survey teams.

The district administration had started the socio-economic survey in Nuagaon after taking all precautions and deployment of police forces.

Nearly 500 villagers of Nuagaon led by sarpanch Bhaskar Swain held demonstration and staged road blockade to stop the survey.

They alleged that the Posco survey is going on without the consent of the villagers and urged the administration to stop it till the completion of discussions between the villagers and the administration.

After hearing their demands, the district officials gave a proposal to send the representatives to start discussions on the Posco related issues but the irate villagers insisted on stopping the survey as a pre-condition to start negotiations.The locals were unyielding on their demand even though the district administration suggested that the survey work and discussions can go on simultaneously.

“The district administration and Posco have kept us in the dark for the past five years and the Posco compensation package has been finalized without the survey. The villagers had extended cooperation to the administration during the last Posco survey in 2008 which was completed peacefully but this time there is no discussion with the villagers neither for the survey nor for the compensation package”, said Swain.

The villagers have lost faith in the district administration as well as Posco, he added.