The Orissa government may have decided to exclude private land at Dhinkia, the epicentre of anti-Posco protests, from the land acquisition process of the project but some villagers, who have agreed to concede their land, have sought the intervention of Jairam Ramesh, the Union minister for forest and environment, to sell their land to the project.
These villagers have agreed to part with their land for the mega steel project provided a suitable price is paid to them.
“The villagers of Dhinkia have sent a letter to Ramesh to intervene in this matter and urged him to take immediate steps to facilitate takeover of their land for the Posco project”, said Nirvaya Samantray, former sarpanch of Dhinkia panchayat and secretary, United Action Committee, a pro-Posco outfit active at the project site.
In the letter, the villagers have highlighted that out of 284 acres of private land at Dhinkia, they have agreed to hand over 218 acres to Posco. They have also stated that 90 per cent of land at Dhinkia is barren land where betel vine cultivation cannot be taken up due to non-availability of sweet water.
Besides MoEF, these villagers have also sent their memorandum to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, the state Chief Secretary B K Patnaik; Priyabrata Pattnaik, chairman and managing director of Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) and the Jagatsinghpur district collector Narayan Jena to reconsider the stand to exclude acquisition of private land at Dhinkia.
Says Samantray, “I am ready to offer my eight acres of private land at Dhinkia, if the company offers a suitable price”.
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The villagers of Dhinkia, meanwhile, have also flayed the state Chief Minister for excluding 284 acres of private land at Dhinkia.
They held that by excluding private land at Dhinkia, the state government has bowed to the demand of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), the organization spearheading the anti-Posco agitation. They also accused the government of not consulting the villagers before taking such a decision.
The villagers have threatened not to vacate encroached forest and revenue land for the Posco plant if private land at Dhinkia is excluded for the project.
Out of 438 acres of private land required for the project, 284 acres fall under Dhinkia village while 67 acres was to be acquired at Gobindpur village under Dhinkia panchayat.
Meanwhile, the state government has decided to exclude 284 acres of private land at Dhinkia panchayat, a move which would bring down the number of displaced families from 803 to 613.
“The villagers earn their livelihood by cultivating betel vines, cashew and fish not just on 284 acres of private land but on thousands of acres of government land. The government cannot allow Posco to set up its project on forest land which sustains the livelihood of the locals”, said sarpanch of Dhinkia Sisir Mohapatra.