Efforts on to check Maoist violence in State: DGP

PRAFULLA DAS

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Performance of the police personnel comes in for praise

The State police, with the deployment of Central paramilitary forces in the Maoist violence-hit regions, are now trying their best to tackle the menace of Left wing extremism in an effective manner.

While in many regions the police have succeeded in counterchecking the Maoist activities during the past one year, efforts are now on to prevent Maoist strikes in the regions where the extremists were still active or trying to regroup. The success was achieved by busting of a number of Maoist camps and seizure of arms and ammunitions.

“We are trying our very best to bring down the Maoist violence profile in the State and provide security cover to developmental activities,” State Director General of Police Manmohan Praharaj told The Hindu on Thursday.

The DGP is happy over the performance of the State police, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Border Security Force (BSF) that had given led to a decline in the Maoist violence in the State in 2011 when compared to 2010.

The total death roll relating to the Maoist menace stood at 49 in 2011, which was less than the previous year. The 49 deaths reported in the State this year include the death of two security personnel and auxiliary staff of the State police, death of nine police personnel from Chhattisgarh in a Maoist attack in Nuapada district a few months ago. The remaining deaths include 23 Maoists and remaining were civilians.

The regions where the police succeeded in arresting the growth of Maoists during 2011 include the districts such Keonjhar, Jajpur, and Dhenkanal. The menace was also brought under control to a great extent in Sundargarh district bordering Jharkhand, according to sources.

The police, however, are now focusing on deploying more Central forces in Nabarangpur, Nuapada, Bargarh, and Bolangir districts where the Maoists are resorting to violence during the recent months. The other areas where efforts are being made to take on the Maoists in an effective way include portions of Ganjam, Gajapati, Kandhamal, and Rayagada districts.

Under surveillance

The top officials of the State police are now happy that they had managed to keep the Maoist problem under control in some regions, and are preparing to tackle them in other inaccessible areas in Koraput and Malkangiri districts in the coming months. Narayanpatna Block in Koraput is also under strict surveillance of the police where the situation is under control during the past few months.

However, going by the ground realities, it seems that it will take time to put an end to the Maoist problem that spread to 21 of the 30 districts in the State.

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49 persons died in Naxal violence this year

Maoist problem spreads to 21 of 30 districts

BJD going strong despite scams

The ruling Biju Janata Dal, which celebrated its 14{+t}{+h}Foundation Day on Monday, appears to be going strong despite its government facing a series of scams in recent years.

It was evident from the claims the leaders of the party made at a meeting held here to mark the party's completion of 14 years. The meeting virtually turned out to the launching of the party's campaign for the panchayat polls scheduled for February.

Even though the scams such as mining, land, coal, dal, mark sheet and MGNREGS had generated enough criticism against their government, the leaders who addressed the meeting at the party office claimed they would comfortably win a majority in the panchayat polls.

Putting on a brave face, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and many other leaders of the party tried their best to criticise the Congress-led government at the Centre on various issues to keep the morale of the party workers high ahead of the panchayat polls.

Mineral resource rent tax

Mr. Patnaik criticised the UPA government for not revising royalty on iron ore and not imposing Mineral Resource Rent Tax despite he writing several letters to the Prime Minister.

In his usual style, the Chief Minister also highlighted the various welfare measures launched by his government for the benefit of the people belonging to different sections of the society. He also urged the party workers to inform the people about his government.

Apparently aware of the fact that opposition Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party were unable to garner sufficient public support, one of the senior leaders even went to claim that their party would win at least 450 Zilla Parishad seats in the panchayat polls.

Although their party was plagued by infighting, the BJD leaders claimed that they would win the forthcoming panchayat polls.

Naveen, party leaders flay Central government on various issues

Chief Minister highlights welfare measures launched by his government

Ad blitz with an eye on panchayat polls?

PRAFULLA DAS

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It is on the lines of India Shining campaign undertaken by the NDA government

Is Odisha really shining or the Naveen Patnaik government trying hard to create a feel-good factor by launching an advertisement blitzkrieg ahead of the forthcoming panchayat polls?

Whatever be the truth, the advertisement campaign launched by the State government certainly tells an unusual story.

The advertisement campaign seems to have been undertaken by different departments of the State government to highlight various pro-people schemes with a clear intention to garner support in favour of the ruling Biju Janata Dal ahead of the polls scheduled to be held in February next.

A cursory look at the local newspapers during the past couple of days makes it clear enough that the advertisements are being released by the government just to highlight various welfare programmes without any reason, but to justify that the government has been doing a lot for the poor and deprived sections of society.

Full page ads

Several newspapers have been given three or four advertisements each on a daily basis during the past few days, all highlighting government schemes meant for different sections of society.

Many of these advertisements are full-page advertisements that would make any media house feel happy in terms of revenue generation. According to political analysts, the ongoing advertisement campaign, being carried out before the issuance of the notification for the panchayat elections that would bring the model code of conduct into force, is not only aimed at generating support for the ruling party ahead of the polls but also to refurbish the image of the government, which is being criticised for various scams.

It is a different matter that the opposition parties have so far not reacted to the issue or raised questions whether the government is right in releasing a series of advertisements using taxpayer's money for gaining political mileage.

But the number of advertisements released by various departments certainly reminds of the India Shining slogans of the erstwhile Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in which the BJD was a partner.

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Political analysts see it as an attempt at image makeover by the BJD

Opposition parties are yet to react to the high-voltage campaign

Orissa’s unborn daughters

PRAFULLA DAS
in Nayagarh and Bhubaneswar

The female foeticide expose in Nayagarh points to a practice that is prevalent throughout the State.

PICTURES: ASHOKE CHAKRABARTY 

At the venue of a demonstration organised by AIDWA activists in front of the State Secretariat in Bhubaneswar on July 24.

ONCE you leave Orissa’s fairly green capital city of Bhubaneswar and head towards the district headquarters town of Nayagarh, about 100 kilometres away, virtually everything appears greener. The rainwater-filled paddyfields and farmers at work make you feel everything is all right with Orissa.

But just 6 km before Nayagarh, at the Itamati panchayat headquarters, one gets an indication that this is not the case. A blue roadside signboard in Oriya reads: “For safe termination of pregnancy and motherhood, Dr. Nabakrushna Sahu, MD (O&G) Utkal, Kalpana Complex, Nayagarh.” The town recently hit the headlines for its network of doctors and owners of nursing homes and ultrasound clinics engaged in the unethical medical practice of sex determination and female foeticide.

Kalpana Complex has been very much in the news as it housed Krishna Clinic, a nursing home that has been pulled up for carrying out mass female foeticide. The clinic was owned by Nabakrushna Sahu’s wife Sabita Sahu. Sahu, who is still in government service, has been on leave for the past two years, apparently to manage his wife’s clinic.

Sabita Sahu is now in judicial custody following her arrest, while Sahu is absconding. Sabita Sahu’s arrest came soon after the Nayagarh police retrieved large quantities of infant body parts from a 6-metre-deep pit that her clinic allegedly used to dump medical waste. Between July 22 and July 25, the authorities took out around 150 polythene packets containing medical waste, many of them had infant skulls and bones. Local people who watched the three-day action said that the body parts recovered would be of more than 60 foetuses.

On July 24, this writer found a large number of bones and skulls still lay scattered near the well sealed by the police. The size of the bones varied from 2.5 centimetres to 10 cm. The human remains were not very old or decomposed.

The crime came to light on July 14 when a 12-year-old schoolboy saw seven female foetuses packed in bloodstained polythene bags, while searching for waste bottles near Duburi hills close to Ramachandiprasad village, a few kilometres from Nayagarh town. People from nearby areas thronged the spot as the news spread. The well, situated on a site on the outskirts of the town and belonging to Krishna Clinic, is hardly 100 m away from the Saraswati Sishu Vidya Mandir school.

An Oriya television channel reported the incident the same day. However, the foetuses had disappeared by the time the Nayagarh police reached the spot in the evening.

The Chief District Medical Officer, M.M. Ali Baig, said that according to medical experts the infant body parts, particularly the long bones recovered from the pit, belonged to foetuses that were about five to six months old. Ali was transferred to Nayagarh on July 12, just two days before the racket was exposed. In fact, Nayagarh district has seen as many as 16 Chief District Medical Officers since 2000. This throws enough light on the way in which the health care system in the State is run.

Many women’s organisations have accused the Nayagarh police of laxity. “The foetuses were removed from the spot with police connivance,” alleged Tapasi Praharaj of the Orissa unit of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) after a visit to Nayagarh.

A billboard advertising safe termination of pregnancy at Krishna Clinic in Nayagarh.

The accusations seem to have some basis. The police showed little interest in the case after the foetuses were found. The administration also did not take any action until more infant body parts were retrieved from another waste-dumping pit in the town. Raids on nursing homes and ultrasound clinics began in earnest only then.

An independent fact-finding team from Bhubaneswar, comprising social activists and office-bearers of various child rights organisations, visited the Duburi hills site on July 16. It submitted a report to the government and demanded a Crime Branch probe.

On July 21, the government ordered a Crime Branch inquiry into the case pertaining to the discovery of the seven foetuses at Duburi hills. The Crime Branch took over the case on July 22. However, neither the missing female foetuses nor those who destroyed the evidence could be traced.

The detection of the second pit led to the arrest of seven persons who managed nursing homes and ultrasound clinics in Nayagarh. The police said that more arrests were likely. Many of those running the clinics were untraceable.

The State Health Department has sealed all the eight nursing homes and five ultrasound clinics in Nayagarh. Investigations revealed that seven of the nursing homes did not have the licence to operate. The ultrasound clinics were running without official approval.

Several of the nursing homes have questionable records. One of them, with ultrasound facility, was run by a woman who studied homoeopathy. She is absconding. Another nursing home, adjacent to the district headquarters hospital, was operating even though its owners had informed the district health officials long ago that they were winding it up.

Local residents are convinced about the involvement of government doctors in the sex determination and female foeticide cases. While Dr. Sahu had his last posting at Bolagarh, about 25 km away from Nayagarh, several doctors posted at the district headquarters hospital were rendering their services at nursing homes in the town.

According to a government doctor, most of the private nursing homes and ultrasound clinics in the small town had sprung up in the past six years. The authorities also knew that sex determination and termination of pregnancies were conducted in the clinics.

According to Dr. B. Sukla of the district headquarters hospital, the then Chief District Medical Officer of Nayagarh, Dr. A.K. Das, had written to the State Health Department and other authorities in 2005 informing them about these activities. But no action was initiated.

Fake drugs racket

Meanwhile, a massive fake medicine manufacturing and marketing racket was unearthed at Kantabanjhi town in Bolangir district on July 20. Four persons, including a doctor, were arrested even as medical shop owners in several towns dumped large quantities of fake drugs into rivers, canals and nullahs.

An unnerved Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik, who had already ordered a Crime Branch probe into the female foeticide cases, ordered a similar probe into the fake drug racket. As criticism started coming from various quarters and the Centre sought a report on female foeticide cases, the State government on July 25 announced that separate task forces would be created at the district level to control the fake medicine menace and the problem of female foeticide. A four-member monitoring committee headed by the Chief Secretary would be formed to oversee the functioning of the task forces, the government said.

However, Opposition parties and women’s organisations are not satisfied with the action taken in the two cases. Many political parties demanded that heads should roll in the police, the administration and the Health Department. The Congress demanded that Health Minister Duryodhan Majhi should step down.

Women’s organisations, which have been raising for long the issue of falling child sex ratio in the State, particularly in the coastal districts, are up in arms. “Those in the government only know how to shift responsibility. The Women and Child Development Department says that it was the duty of the Health Department to implement the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique Act. Moreover, nobody in the government seemed ready to talk about the unborn child,” said Bisakha Bhanja of the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations.

Asha Hans of Sanskriti blamed the State for ignoring requests to deal with the issue of the declining child sex ratio. The 2001 Census data presented an alarming picture of the child sex ratio in the State.

Curious visitors to the spot of the pit, now sealed, where aborted foetuses were seized by the police.

There had been a decline of 17 points, from 967 in 1991 to 950 in 2001, she said. Not surprisingly, Nayagarh had the lowest child sex ratio – 901. Female foeticide and a skewed gender ratio were more prevalent in the urban areas of the State.

“The Nayagarh female foeticide case is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Tapasi Praharaj. “Female foeticide is prevalent in almost all districts of Orissa. Those involved in female foeticide and the authorities who support them should be punished immediately; all government departments concerned should work in coordination to check the menace,” she said.

The women activists lamented that the preference for the male child was growing in Orissa. They said that the two-child norm for those who wanted to get elected to panchayati raj institutions in Orissa had made people in rural areas opt for gender-selective abortion.

National Commission for Women member Manju Hembram, who headed the Commission’s three-member team to Nayagarh, expressed shock over the manner in which female foeticide had been committed there. She blamed it on the administration’s failure to implement the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique Act.

With the Nayagarh female foeticide case bringing the crime against unborn girl children to the fore, there is unanimity in the belief that the practice is prevalent in other parts of the State as well. There is a demand for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the whole episode.

Many people feel that the mere formation of task forces by the government will not help curb female foeticide. Action against errant private clinics and diagnostic centres and an aggressive campaign against female foeticide and the decreasing sex ratio are necessary to deal with the challenge.

Tactical retreat

PRAFULLA DAS
in Bhubaneswar

The Orissa government suspends the land acquisition for the Posco project in the face of stiff opposition from the people.

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT 

Children form the front line of the human barricade in Kujanga block of Jagatsinghpur district.

SIX years ago, when the South Korean steel giant Posco arrived in Orissa with the biggest ever foreign direct investment that had come the country's way, it was expected to help rid the economically backward State of its ‘poor' tag and bring prosperity.

Posco had won the $12 billion deal at a time when steel companies and prospective steelmakers from all parts of the world were making a beeline for Orissa to grab a share of the State's abundant natural resources – iron ore and other minerals, coal, revenue and agricultural land, forest land and water. In June 2005, it signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the State government for a 12-million-tonne capacity steel plant that was to come up in over 4,000 acres (one acre is 0.4 hectare) of land spread over the gram panchayats of Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakujang in Erasama block of Jagatsinghpur district.

But neither Posco nor any other big-ticket industrial projects – such as those from Tata Steel and Vedanta Alumina Limited – in the State has got off the ground so far. Agitations against them have overshadowed the industrialisation hype in the State.

The local people's refusal to part with their lands blocks the implementation of the projects. With the State government not holding discussions with the agitating people, the stalemate continues.

In the first place, the Naveen Patnaik government had not invited any of the companies to set up industries in the State. It was the companies that came running to the State government, seeking help to set up steel mills of different capacities when the price of iron ore soared in the international market.

Chief Minister Patnaik, who came to power riding an anti-Congress wave in 2000, was soon signing MoUs at frequent intervals. He claimed that his government was seriously interested in the industrial development of the State through the exploitation of its mineral resources and also other natural resources such as water, land and forest.

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT 

In Kujanga block, on June 11, a day after two dozen betel gardens were destroyed by the police to acquire

The State government went ahead with the industrialisation drive, forgetting that a vast majority of the State's native population was dependent on agriculture. The Chief Minister, who has not entertained the idea of holding talks with the agitators, is depending on the district administrations concerned and the police to acquire land at any cost from the people. The police stations in the areas witnessing industrialisation have been busy registering cases against those opposing displacement and loss of livelihood sources.

In the case of Posco, the State government has bent rules, including the Forest Rights Act, to implement the steel plant project. It also recommended to the Centre to grant Posco prospecting licence for the Khandadhar iron ore reserve in Sundargarh district.

The State government's recommendation was criticised and rejected by the Orissa High Court. It has since challenged the High Court order in the Supreme Court.

Shady deal

In fact, suspicions over the intentions of Posco and the State government had started growing even before the MoU was signed. Opposition parties questioned many of the company's proposals, particularly those with regard to the export of iron ore through its own proposed captive port at the Jatadhari river mouth on the State's coast, a few kilometres away from the site chosen for the steel plant and its captive power plant.

A captive port seemed superfluous when the site chosen for the steel plant was just nine kilometres away from the Paradip port. The proposal to grant special economic zone (SEZ) status to the steel plant was also strongly opposed by opposition parties and other organisations.

The anti-Posco agitation started in July 2005 under the banner of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS). On many occasions since then, the local people prevented government officials and Posco employees, who came to survey the land earmarked for the project, from entering the area.

They were often detained, and later released, with a warning not to enter the area in the future.

The State government, which never held discussions with the displaced, started acquiring land in earnest after the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests granted the final clearance in May for the diversion of a vast tract of forest land for the company.

About 20 platoons of armed police personnel were deployed in and around the 3,719 acres of land earmarked for the project. Tension started building up on June 2 when 17 persons, including Basudev Behera, Panchayat Samiti member of Gadakujang gram panchayat and vice-president of the PPSS, were beaten up and arrested for opposing the destruction of their betel gardens. Betel leaf cultivation is a major source of livelihood here.

The incident led to the Sangram Samiti forming a human barricade outside Gobindpur village in Dhinkia gram panchayat, the nerve centre of the anti-Posco agitation, to prevent the entry of land acquisition officials and the police.

A farmer works in his betel garden, which falls in the Posco project area, in Dhinkia panchayat of Jagatsinghpur district.

The resistance intensified when about two dozen betel gardens in Gobindpur area were destroyed on June 10. Officials entered the area through a different route as hundreds of men, women and children blocked the main road. What has deterred the administration and gun-toting policemen is the presence of a large number of children at the forefront of the human barricade. On June 21, the State government said that the land acquisition process in the area had been halted until further orders.

The order came after senior leaders of many political parties, including the Left parties which have always supported the anti-Posco agitation, the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Nationalist Congress Party, visited Gobindpur to express solidarity with the villagers.

Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, too, issued a statement expressing the hope that the State government would not use the clearance from his Ministry as a “licence for forcible acquisition of land”. He appealed to the State government to ensure that land was acquired only through peaceful and lawful means. “Dialogue and discussion, not coercion, is as essential to ecological security as it is to democracy,” he added.

Activists who visited the agitators demanded that the State government stop forceful land acquisition and withdraw the police without delay. They also demanded that the Chief Minister visit the area and hold talks with PPSS leaders. In fact, the Chief Minister had assured a PPSS delegation in June last year that he would visit the project-affected villages, but he did not keep his promise.

The State government also receives flak for going ahead with the land acquisition without renewing the MoU, which expired in June last year. The government has been stating that it will renew the MoU soon.

The Chief Minister insists that no force was used to acquire land and that his government was for peaceful industrialisation. But the villagers have a different story to narrate.

“Many influential persons from our village having links with the ruling Biju Janata Dal have forced us to give away our betel gardens,” said a farmer of Nuagaon village. Though the administration claims that the majority of people in Nuagaon support the Posco venture, hundreds of people from the village joined the human barricade after the demolition of their betel vineyards. A petition has been filed in the Orissa High Court questioning the land acquisition as claims filed by villagers seeking rights over the forest land they had been cultivating since long had not been disposed of. The petitioners are yet to get any relief.

Temporary halt

A visit to the seaside villages makes it clear that the State government may resume land acquisition any day. The heavy police presence in the area is a clear indicator. Work on the construction of a boundary wall around the acquired land has begun. But the PPSS activists and the villagers, who demand the shifting of the project site, say they will resist the government move.

The involvement of children in the agitation has been questioned by the State government. But the PPSS thinks it is an effective approach. Children, they point out, are affected by the displacement of their parents from their land and livelihood sources.

Orissa defers land acquisition for Posco

Prafulla Das

BHUBANESWAR: The Orissa government on Saturday deferred land acquisition for the proposed mega steel project of Posco till Monday, as pressure mounted on it for withdrawal of armed policemen from three gram panchayats in Jagatsinghpur district.

The authorities announced the postponement owing to bad weather, hours before social activist Swami Agnivesh visited Govindpur to express solidarity with the agitating villagers who have formed a human barricade at the entry point to their village, with children and women at the vanguard.

Addressing the villagers who have been opposing the land acquisition and demanding the shifting of the project to any other location, Swami Agnivesh said the impasse could be ended through talks between the State government and the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti. He urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to visit the villages and talk to the people who opposed the project to save their land and sources of livelihood. Forcible land acquisition should be stopped forthwith.

Expressing concern at the Centre's clearance for Posco to set up a captive port close to the site chosen for the steel plant, the Swami said he would take up the controversy with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh.

A team of senior Congress leaders of the State also visited Govindpur to express solidarity with the agitators. They also condemned forcible land acquisition.

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and many prominent anti-displacement activists will visit Govindpur over the next few days.

In Bhubaneswar, many activists took part in a dharna during the day against the forcible land acquisition. Activists of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) staged a demonstration demanding that the land acquisition by use of force be halted immediately.

The State government has been facing growing criticism as it is going ahead with the exercise though it was not able to renew the memorandum of understanding signed with Posco in June 2005, which expired in June last year.

Posco: government suspends land acquisition due to bad weather

Prafulla Das

Sangram Samiti organises public meeting to oppose land acquisition

BHUBANESWAR: The Orissa government on Friday suspended land acquisition for the Posco steel plant project, citing bad weather, while hundreds of agitating villagers, including many women and children formed a human chain outside Gobindpur village in their attempt to resist the process.

Armed policemen, who were proceeding towards Gobindpur village, returned to their camps from Balitutha, the entry point to the Posco project area, after officials suspended the exercise for the day.

The agitators, however, were under the impression that the administration stopped the process in view of the people's resistance and the growing support for the anti-Posco movement.

The Sangram Samiti organised a public meeting at the place where the villagers had gathered to foil the administration's move to resume land acquisition after a break.

Many prominent social activists and two senior leaders of the State unit of the Nationalist Congress Party addressed the gathering, criticising the State government for using armed policemen to forcibly acquire land for the steel venture.

NCP opposes police picketing

The NCP leaders visited the area to oppose the heavy police presence in the locality even though their party had contested the last Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in alliance with the ruling Biju Janata Dal headed by Naveen Patnaik.

In a related development, former MLA of Erasama and a resident of Gobindpur, Bijay Nayak, too addressed the meeting and announced support to the agitation. Mr. Nayak, a Congress leader, hails from Gobindpur village.

Many of the speakers, including social activist Prafulla Samantara, demanded a high-level probe into the demolition of “fake” betel vineyards in the area. He alleged that the administration officials had siphoned off a huge amount of money by claiming to have demolished many betel vineyards.

They also refuted the administration's claim that many residents of Gobindpur had written to the authorities about their willingness to part with their land. The matter should be probed by the higher authorities, the speakers demanded.

President of Odisha Jana Sammilani Rabi Das demanded that the State government immediately withdraw police from the area and the Chief Minister visit the locality to talk to the agitating villagers who were not willing to hand over their land and livelihood sources to make space for the steel project.

The Great Land Grab

ORISSA
Prafulla Das in Bhubaneswar

TO the outside world, Orissa is no longer the land of the Jagannath Temple in Puri, the Sun Temple in Konark or the Chilika lake. It is now best known for places such as Kalinganagar, Niyamgiri, Dhinkia, Khandadhar and Kashipur whose residents are up in arms against the acquisition of thousands of acres of land for mining and other industrial projects that can sound the death knell of their livelihoods. Police lathi charge and firing, and the foisting of “false cases” on people fighting to protect their land have become the order of the day. Protests are also on the rise against the taking over of thousands of acres of both government and private land to establish private universities and other educational institutions.

Between 2002 and 2010, the State government cleared 184 industrial projects involving a total investment of Rs.8 lakh crore. They include 50 plants for the production of 83 million tonnes of steel at an investment of Rs.2,50,000 crore, 30 thermal power plants for a targeted production of 37,000 MW of power, four port projects, several alumina refineries and a number of cement plants. 

The government has identified 14 sites to develop ports along the 480-km coastline.

All these industrial projects require more than 50,000 acres of land. Besides, thousands of acres are to be alienated for the extraction of iron ore, coal, bauxite and other minerals to meet the raw material needs of the projects. This is over and above the vast tracts of land already under mining.

However, the State government has been able to facilitate the acquisition of only about 15,000 acres. A few companies are buying land for their projects directly from the people, by winning over influential people, in different areas. With the State government accepting more and more proposals for industry, resistance to the acquisition of land has grown stronger. The government has deployed thousands of police personnel to help the land acquisition authorities.

In the Dhinkia area in Jagatsinghpur district, the Orissa government has been making a last-ditch effort to acquire 4,000 acres of land for the proposed 12-million-tonne steel mill of the South Korean giant Posco in the face of stiff resistance from local people. Although the villagers have gone to court, terming the land acquisition “illegal” and violative of the Forest Rights Act, the government is going ahead with it.

Last year, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik assured a delegation from the Posco project area that he would visit the villages to hear them out. But he has since backed out. And, notwithstanding the opposition at a number of places across the State, his government has not stopped signing MoUs with more and more companies. The MoUs hold the promise of employment to thousands of people. But the fact is that lakhs of people will get displaced and lose their livelihood because of the proposed projects. In the case of Posco, the creation of 7,000 jobs has been promised, but the venture will affect the lives and livelihood of more than 20,000 people.

In fact, Patnaik's tenure, which began in March 2000, marks the rising of many people's movements against land acquisition for private companies. Three tribal men died when the police opened fire on agitators at Maikanch village in Kashipur block of Rayagada district in December 2000.

Those taking the industrialisation process forward, however, did not learn from their mistakes at Maikanch. The resistance to land acquisition reached a flashpoint on January 2, 2006, when 13 people died in police firing at the Kalinganagar industrial hub in Jajpur district. The tribal people there were opposing the construction of a boundary wall for the proposed six-million-tonne steel plant of Tata Steel.

Though the incident attracted widespread attention, Patnaik did not even visit the spot after the firing. The only visit he paid to the area after a long time was to inaugurate a police station in the locality where the administration has been striving to displace the tribal people by dividing them on political lines.

As criticism grew, the State government came out with a new rehabilitation and resettlement policy and established a new directorate for it. Patnaik claimed that the policy was one of the best in the country. But the situation on the ground has shown no improvement, and every time there is resistance from the people, the government deploys the police to tackle the situation.

The administration turns a deaf ear to the project displaced people. In many cases the affected people have approached a court of law or the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. The results, however, have not been very encouraging for them. The major opposition parties too are equally indifferent when it comes to opposing displacement.

Tribal people, who bear the brunt of industrial development, have been fighting tooth and nail against the acquisition of forest land and mineral-bearing land and hills. Be it in the case of the Niyamgiri hills at Lanjigargh in Kalahandi, which Vedanta Aluminium Limited was trying to mine, or the Khandadhar hills in Sundargarh district, which the government was hell-bent on handing over to Posco for iron-ore extraction, they have come out in large numbers to oppose mining, which would adversely affect their livelihoods and water availability.

Surprisingly, the State government seems to have missed the point about how the regions witnessing maximum industrial growth and mining activity will be able to cope with the cumulative impact of the so-called industrial development. The 30 thermal power plants alone would generate 90 million tonnes of fly ash a year, and there is little land available to dump this waste.

Further, the acquisition of vast areas of land for industrial projects has created a real estate boom across the State. The poor are the losers as corporate houses and real estate developers vie with one another to grab land. The hype over industrial development has already cost the farmers and tribal people dear.

Supporters of people fighting against displacement at Narayanpatna and other places have been insisting that it is high time the government reviewed its approach of handing over land to corporate houses. But the State government, which claims to be making efforts to draw a balance between the environment and industrialisation, is not willing to listen.

Worse, people's movements are branded as pro-Maoist, and innocent people and activists questioning the land acquisition moves are jailed and charged with having links with the extremists.

Ready to resist

PRAFULLA DAS
in Dhinkia

Villagers of Dhinkia in Jagatsinghpur are preparing for an all-out battle to defeat attempts to implement the Posco project.

LINGARAJ PANDA 

Residents of Dhinkia panchayat at the gates they put up to prevent the administration and Posco officials from entering the village.

VISITORS to Dhinkia in Jagatsinghpur district in Orissa are stopped at the barricades at its entry points. Villagers have been guarding them 24x7 since February 1, a day after the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) granted conditional clearances for Posco's 12-million-tonne steel plant in the area. Having agitated for five years against the project, they are in no mood to relent; no government official, police personnel or Posco employee can expect to get past the bamboo fences.

Residents of the coastal hamlets in Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakujang are all set to resist democratically a fresh move by the Naveen Patnaik government to resume land acquisition – which had been withheld for some time now – for the proposed mega project that threatens to snatch their homes and livelihoods. The protest is peaceful, but the place resembles a war zone. It is a war between the people and, as they say, a “pro-corporate government”.

The villagers have been opposing displacement since July 2005, when the Patnaik government signed a memorandum of understanding with the South Korean steelmaker to establish a steel-cum-captive power plant and a minor port in their locality. The government has held no meaningful discussion with them though thousands of people have come together under the banner of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) led by Abhay Sahu, a Communist Party of India leader.

Last June, a group of PPSS activists met the Chief Minister at his office in Bhubaneswar on the latter's invitation. But Patnaik did not keep his promise to visit the villages coming under the site earmarked for the project to find out the reasons for the agitation. Worse still, after the MoEF announced its go-ahead for the steel plant and port projects, he reportedly said there was no possibility of his visiting Dhinkia in the near future.

The villagers' opposition to the project is not without good reason. Numerous creeks, narrow water channels and ponds meant for prawn cultivation dot the Dhinkia landscape. There is hardly a place where there is no cultivation in the freshwater zone just two and a half kilometres from the Bay of Bengal coast, towards the south of Paradip town. People here now fear that the State government will make serious efforts to displace them in its efforts to facilitate the implementation of Posco's projects. Suresh Kumar Dash, who has four betel vineyards, has not gone out of Dhinkia panchayat limits since the agitation against Posco began in 2005. An active member of the PPSS, he has a number of cases registered against him and he fears he will be arrested outside the village.

The betel vines he has grown on forest land adjacent to the village help Dash fend for his family of six. He also employs at least 50 labourers a month at a daily wage of Rs.250 each. They come from neighbouring villages. Truckloads of betel leaves are taken out of Dhinkia to distant places across the country every day.

Most people in Dhinkia grow betel leaves or coconut, cultivate rice twice a year (kharif and rabi crops), do fishing, or rear cows and buffaloes for a living. Papaya, cashew, banana and vegetables are aplenty in the village.

“We have been living here peacefully. Can we live this way in a resettlement colony if we are displaced?” asks Jyotirmayee Satpathy, a 23-year-old girl in Patana hamlet in Dhinkia panchayat. Her mother runs a betel shop at her house in the heart of the village.

Jyotirmayee's father, who was the village priest, died two years ago. The three-member family, which includes her mother and brother, 18, does not own any agricultural land. The boy now has taken up his father's vocation and supplements the family income. Jyotirmayee also rears goats.

She justifies her opposition to the project by saying that a number of families that got displaced a few years ago for an oil refinery project near Paradip had became daily wage labourers. These people were now coming to work in the fields or betel vineyards in their hamlet, she said.

LINGARAJ PANDA 

ABHAY SAHU, LEADER of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti.

“The Naveen Patnaik government is now planning to use force to displace hundreds of people from their homes. But we will not allow the destruction of Dhinkia gram panchayat's agrarian economy and will not part with our land, homes and sources of livelihood at any cost,” said Abhay Sahu.

Sahu was arrested on October 12, 2008, and was in jail until August 14, 2009. Out on bail, he is determined to take the fight to its logical end.

Raju Swain, 31, from Patana is a key activist of the PPSS. He has nearly 25 cases against him for being involved in the anti-Posco agitation. “We are virtually under house arrest. I have not gone outside the Dhinkia area as I apprehend arrest in one of these cases,” he said.

Nevertheless, the villagers are prepared for another round of agitation. On February 13, the State's Director General of Police Manmohan Praharaj, along with Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Orissa Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) Priyabrata Patnaik, visited some areas close to the site selected for the Posco project. They covered a few kilometres from the port town of Paradip towards the proposed Posco site on a kuchha road. Apparently, IDCO has plans to construct connecting roads from Paradip to the proposed steel mill and captive port of Posco. “The joint visit of the DGP and the IDCO CMD clearly shows that the government is forcing us to be at war with it,” said Sahu.

A day after the duo's visit, more than 150 villagers from Dhinkia and nearby gram panchayats dug up the sandy road the officials took at nearly 15 places. This confirmed the determination of Sahu to intensify the agitation in the coming months.

Outside Dhinkia too, the Posco project has many hurdles to cross: opposition to the supply of water for the steel plant from the Mahanadi river and to the handing over of the Khandadhar iron ore reserve to Posco. The matter pertaining to the grant of prospecting licence for the Khandadhar mines in favour of Posco is before the Supreme Court. The State government had, in fact, moved the apex court challenging an order of the Orissa High Court, which set aside its decision to recommend to the Centre grant of licence to Posco. The High Court order was passed on a petition filed by an Indian company that was one of the applicants for the prospecting licence.

As regards the plans of the PPSS to intensify its ongoing agitation, Sahu said it had already started coordinating with other people's movements in different regions of the State and outside. “Anti-Posco solidarity fronts have already been formed in different cities of the country to extend moral support to our agitation,” he said.

“We will resist peacefully. Also, we don't plan go to court against the decision of the Naveen Patnaik government to tell a bundle of lies to the Central government and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests with the sole aim to obtain various clearances for Posco,” said Sahu.

He is equally critical of Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh for giving the green signal to the Posco project.

LINGARAJ PANDA 

PADDY FIELDS OF Dhinkia panchayat. The land here remains productive throughout the year.

“He [Jairam Ramesh] broke the laws by going against the reports of the committees that had been set up by the Central government itself,” he said.

Many non-governmental organisations too are preparing to challenge the Orissa government's stand on the implementation of the Forest Rights Act in the Posco project area.

But Sahu said forest rights was not the issue the PPSS was concerned with. “Our agitation not to hand over our homes, land and other sources of livelihood started much before the FRA came up for implementation,” he said.

Sahu said there was no government mechanism at that time to facilitate the filing of petitions by the people that they be given rights over the forest land they claim to be dependent on or are cultivating.

About the State government's claim that its policy on resettlement and rehabilitation was one of the best in the country, and the company's claim that it would provide the best resettlement and rehabilitation package to the people facing displacement, Sahu said the PPSS had long ago rejected the R&R policy of the State government.

The writing is on the wall in Dhinkia. The people here are ready to resist displacement no matter what clearances Posco obtains from the Central or State governments for its project.

I am “really worried,” says Majhi's mother

She says he is the sole breadwinner of the family

Her tears kept rolling down when Parbati Majhi spoke to presspersons soon after meeting the mediators who had come down from Hyderabad to facilitate the release of abducted Malkangiri Collector R. Vineel Krishna and her Junior Engineer son Pabitra Majhi here on Sunday.

“I am really worried. You could easily make the pain of a mother in such a situation. My son Pabitra is the lone breadwinner of our family,” Ms. Majhi, the widowed mother of the young tribal engineer said.

“I pleaded before the mediators [Someswar Rao and G. Haragopal] to try for the release of the District Collector and my son, and they told me that both of them were safe and they were trying for the release of the two.”

Ms. Majhi, whose husband died in 1999, has been living in a house that they have built on government land in the Saliasahi slum cluster of the city along with her two other sons who are younger than Mr. Majhi.

Mr. Majhi had passed out from a technical institution in Cuttack and joined government service as a Junior Engineer in Maoist-infested Kudumuluguma Block in Malkangiri district on September 23 last year. The family hails from Chanchabani village in Mayurbhanj in the northern part of Orissa.

Ms. Majhi and her other son were helped by a local journalist to reach the State Guest House where the mediators were holding discussions with top officials of the Orissa government.

Although she had been living in the heart of the Capital city, no official from the State government had visited them yet , she said.

Angry villagers damage approach road to Posco site

PRAFULLA DAS

The agitation against land acquisition for the Posco steel plant intensified in this seaside gram panchayat in Jagatsinghpur district on Sunday, with the villagers damaging an approach road to the area earmarked for the project.

Led by Abhay Sahu, chairman of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, which has been spearheading the protest since July 2005, more than 150 people from different hamlets in Dhinkia went out with spades and other tools and damaged the ‘kuchha' road leading to the project site from the Paradip port, which is a few km away.

The PPSS activists decided to damage the road, which runs along the coastline, after the Chairman of the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) and the Director-General of Police took the same road to reach the site on Saturday.

The IDCO plans to make the road a ‘pucca' one as it will act as an approach route to the 4,004 acres earmarked for the Posco's steel plant and captive port near the mouth of the Jatadhari river.

“We will continue our agitation peacefully. We will not hand over an inch of land for Posco in our locality at any cost,” Mr. Sahu said.

Talking of the visit of the DGP and the IDCO Chairman to the area, Mr. Sahu said: “It clearly shows that the State government is readying for applying force to evict people from their land and homes.”

Land acquisition

In August last year, the State government halted the land acquisition process after an order from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. But after the Ministry granted conditional environmental clearance recently, the government is now planning to resume land acquisition after giving an assurance to the Ministry about the people claiming to be dependent on the forestland.

But the villagers are in mood to allow the government to resume the work; they have erected six bamboo gates at the entry points of their gram panchayat to prevent officials, Posco employees and the police from entering their hamlets.