The district administration of Jagatsinghpur has made elaborate arrangements to resume socio-economic survey for the Posco project in the trouble torn Gobindpur village on Saturday.
Security has been beefed up and ten platoons of armed forces have been deployed at Gobindpur and Nuagaon to conduct this survey peacefully.
When contacted by Business Standard, the district rehabilitation officer Surjeet Dash said, “The administration has planned to conduct the survey on Saturday. All preparations have been completed and the survey teams have been alerted to start survey from Saturday morning.”
The administration has completed the Posco survey at Gadkujang and Nuagaon panchayats barring few families due to protests of the villagers. The survey teams conducted their socio-economic, forest and horticulture survey at Nuagaon on June 4 but failed to conduct it in Gobdinpur due to protests. Meanwhile, 80-100 harijan families of Gobindpur village met district collector Narayan Jena and requested him to conduct survey in their village.
After getting support from a few villagers, the administration chalked out strategies to undertake the exercise in this village. Earlier, the police had staged flag-marches from Nuagaon to Gobindpur on two occasions. On the other hand, Posco Pratirodha Sangram Samiti (PPSS), the organization spearheading the anti-Posco agitation in the state, has decided to oppose the survey work in Gobindpur village at any cost.
PPSS has formed a ‘Sangharsh Bahini’ with school students and women. The anti-Posco leaders informed that villagers including women and children are sitting at the entry gate of Gobindpur village to restrict the entry of police and survey teams.
PPSS general secretary and sarpanch, Sisir Mohapatra said, “Discussions between Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik and the six opposition political parties on Posco related issues would be meaningless because the state government is going all out to back the Posco project.
More From This Section
The elaborate preparation being made to conduct the survey by the district administration on Saturday has demonstrated that the outcome of discussions between the Chief Minister and the Left parties would be a failure.”
The villagers are committed to protect their land and livelihood at any cost and won’t allow the survey team to enter Gobindpur village, he added.
Meanwhile, police has registered cases against around 800 villagers of Gobindpur for their alleged involvement in incidents of violence against the Posco survey. Police is trying to nab these accused villagers.