Posco supporters want more compensation, threaten non-coop

Alleging non-availability of an "acceptable" rehabilitation package, supporters of the proposed Posco project from plant site villages near Paradip today threatened non-cooperation if their demands are not met.
"We have been supporting the project all along. However, the state government and the company should not take our support for granted. The villages will not cooperate if their demands are not met," said Tamil Pradhan, leader of the joint coordination committee of villagers backing the project.
"Though villagers have vacated the betel vines and other agricultural fields, they are yet to be given livelihood support," Pradhan said after residents of Gada Kujang, Nuagaon, Bhuyanpal and nearby villages held a rally to vent their anger against the state government and the Korean firm.

They demanded immediate meeting of Rehabilitation and Peripheral Development Advisory Committee (RPDAC) and announcement of a package acceptable to all project affected people. RPDAC meeting was last held in 2011, Pradhan said.
Though the previous RPDAC meeting decided to pay Rs 17 lakh per acre of agricultural land losers and compensate betel vine owners at the rate of Rs 11 lakh per acre of vine plantation, villagers have rejected it demanding higher compensation.
The state government had then clarified that the betel vine owners would be compensated despite the fact that they had raised the vines in government land.

"We will convene the RPDAC meeting, most probably in last week of January or first week of February," Jagatsinghpur district collector S K Mallick said adding he was confident of addressing grievances of the people in the next meeting.

Mallick said the government has already made payments to 1,118 betel vine owners at the rate of Rs 11.50 lakh per acre while taking their vines into possession.
However, Pradhan said that the people demand Rs 15 lakh per acre of betel vines.
This apart, the villagers also demand that as per the decision of the previous RPDAC meeting, the workers of betel vines need to be paid Rs 2250 per month as unemployment allowance. "Not a single worker has been given allowance even as vines were destroyed six months ago," he claimed.
Meanwhile, expectations of the villagers have gone up after the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) while giving environmental clearance for the mega project asked the steel major to spend five per cent of its project cost (estimated Rs 2,600 crore) towards social commitment and periphery development.