On December in 1995, when the then Prime Minister PV Narsimha Rao came to Gopalpur in Ganjam district to lay the foundation stone for a mega steel plant of the Tata Steel, he had to conduct the ceremony amidst demonstrations by the local project affected people.
Fifteen years after, when the chief minister Naveen Patnaik, will lay the foundation in the same place for the Tata Steel’s “Gopalpur Industrial Park” on Friday, he is unlikely to face any opposition.
“The Tatas have already acquired the lands and we will not oppose now” said N. Narayan Reddy, former MLA of Chhatrapur and the president of Gana Sangram Samiti, which was spearheading the agitation against the Tata project in mid 90s.
The Samiti was stiffly opposed to the steel project on the ground that it will displace a large number of people and affect the livelihood of the villagers who earned their subsistence by plucking flowers from the kewda trees grown on the land earmarked for the project.
Reddy, who was detained under National Security Act (NSA), later got elected to the state assembly from Chhatrapur seat on a CPI ticket. He is now a changed person. Instead of opposing the Tatas, he is now busy preparing a wish list for the company to do on carrying out peripheral development work and creating job opportunities for the locals.
Tata Steel had acquired around 3585 acres including 792 acres of government land displacing around 700 families in fivevillages. The displaced families of Badapur, Sindhigaon, Patrapur, Kalipalli and Paikapada have, meanwhile, moved to the rehabilitation colony.Gopalpur MLA Pradeep Panigrahi, who had lost land for the steel plant, said the Industrial Park project of Tata Steel would help in economic growth of the district. “We had sacrificed our land while pursuing the dream of industrialization in mid 90s and now the dream is going to be fulfilled”, Panigrahi said.After shelving its plan of setting up a 10 million tonne steel plant, the company had decided to utilise the lands for a multi-purpose Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and got the in-principle approval of the Center. But instead of SEZ, the company is now settled down to developing the acquired land as an “Industrial Park”.
“The Industrial Park will help in attracting substantial investment into the region and enhance the employment opportunities’ the company officials said. Tata Steel will set up a ferroalloys complex and re-bar steel mill in the proposed park as an anchor investment and facilitate the infrastructure development, the sources said.
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“We are very happy that Tatas are starting work on the land”, said Ramesh Mahakuda of Badapur who had lost about 16 acres of land for the steel project. His family is staying in the rehabilitation colony built by Tatas since 1997.
The company had promised to provide job to at least one person a person of each displaced family, said Narasingh Gouda, another villager.