It is now the betel leaf farmers of a cluster of villages around Paradip in Orissa who now stand in the way of the Indian footprint of a global steel behemoth.
Five years back when South Korean chaebol Posco signed an MoU with Orissa government to set up a Rs 51,000 crore mega project near Paradip, scarcely did it anticipate the trouble it would face from the betel leaf farmers of eight villages where the project is supposed to come up.
Posco-India, which needs 4004 acres of land to set up its 12 MTPA greenfield project, failed to acquire an inch of land in the eight villages in three gram panchayats of Dhinkia, Gada Kujang and Nuagaonas even as the MoU with a five-year validity period lapsed.
The villagers, who earn their living by exporting betel leaves to countries like Maldives, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, argued that a single leaf fetched them Rs one and one acre of betel vine was worth Rs one crore per annum.
There are about 2,900 betel vines in the area giving daily employment to 6,000 people, said Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti president Abhay Sahu.
"We will not allow an inch of our fertile multi-crop land for the industry. We have a flourishing and sustainable agrarian economy," claimed Dhinkia gram panchayat sarpanch Sisir Mohapatra who is also the secretary of the Samiti.
Manorama Khatua, a woman activist opposing the Posco project, said betel leaves from Dhinkia had a special appeal to people in Mumbai and Kanpur.
Demanding shifting of the plant site, the Sangram Samiti in a memorandum to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said: "Betel cultivation in the past had successfully driven out the Integrated Test Range from Baliapal to Chandipur area in Balasore district."
This was not all, the betel leaf farmers of Dhinkia had also fought and succeeded in shifting the proposed refinery project of IOCL in 1993-94 to Paradip.
"The IOCL had to shift its project for the sake of betel vine and agricultural livelihood," Sahu pointed out pleading that the villagers were ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their livelihood.
"We have no objection to Posco project. But it must shift to some barren land as Dhinkia symbolises a flourishing agrarian economy," Mohapatra, who faces a non-bailable warrant for leading the anti-project agitation, said.
With the expiry of Posco's MoU, the Naveen Patnaik government feels: "It (Posco plant) is now or never."
As per the condition in the MoU signed on June 22, 2005, the project's first module, comprising a 3mtpa crude steel plant and a 2.82 mtpa finished steel plant, should have been commissioned by July 2010 or within 36 months from the date of taking possession of the land, or the registration of the executed prospecting license, whichever is later.
However, the deadline passed off even without an inch of land being acquired, a Posco executive pointed out. He said it was the responsibility of the state government to arrange land for the purpose.
Though the state government did not make much effort to acquire land in the last four years in the face of the resistance, it became suddenly active to meet the deadline in April, this year, less than two months before the MoU turned invalid on June 21, 2010.
Asked about the lapse of the MoU, the chief minister said, "Renewal of the MoU is being processed. It will be done according to the law."
The state government's sudden burst of activity started some months after Patnaik met the South Korean president, Lee Myung-Bak, on January 26 at Rastrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.
Patnaik met Lee at a programme on the occasion of the Republic Day this year where Lee was the guest.
"We have been working hard to arrange land for the Posco-India project," Priyabrata Patnaik, chairman and managing director of the Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation told PTI.
While everybody blamed the state government for its alleged failure to acquire land, Orissa's steel and mines minister Raghunath Mohanty refused to subscribe to it.
"The project is delayed primarily on account of delay in obtaining the second stage forest clearance for the project.
The second stage forest clearance came in December, 2009 and relevant certificates under the Tribal and Traditional Forest Dwellers Act were received in March 2010," Mohanty explained.
He wondered how the government could acquire land when forest clearance and TTFDA clearance were pending and said the administration started its efforts only after the Centre cleared hurdles.
Patnaik in his eagerness to bring the country's largest foreign direct investment to Orissa has held direct talks with the villagers and the people who demanded enhanced compensation and rehabilitation.
He also decided not to acquire private land (about 300 acres) of Dhinkia gram panchayat, the epi-centre of the anti-Posco agitation.
With Patnaik announcing not to acquire private land from Dhinkia, Posco -India's land requirement had further reduced to 3719.22 acres from its original plan of acquiring 4004.10 acres for the purpose.
This apart, the state government which had kept its negotiation open with agitating villagers, had meanwhile succeeded in motivating the people to allow socio-economic and forest land survey even in Dhinkia gram panchayat.
The survey work had been completed in seven of the eight villages demarcated to locate Posco project, said revenue divisional commissioner, central division, P K Mohapatra.
"The administration has progressed a lot in last four months," claimed Jagatsinghpur district collector N C Jena.