Posco shifts site office staff on security concerns

The South Korean steel maker Posco today withdrew most of its staff members from the site office at Kujanga and relocated them to the Bhubaneswar corporate office. This was a sharp reaction to the Orissa government's "inaction" to provide ground level "support and security" for implementing the 12 million tonnes, Rs 51,000 crore steel project at Paradip.

The move comes days after four company executives, including three Korean nationals, were kidnapped and detained for more than six hours by the anti-Posco brigade at Dhinkia and 24 hours after the local police forbade the company authorities from entering the project site without their prior permission. The staff relocation is expected to halt the company's earlier plans of starting preparatory work for the project from this month.

Soung-Sik-Cho, chairman and managing director, Posco India, in a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has pointed out that the company executives were apprehensive about their safety at the project site. "The company is concerned about this issue. Therefore, the government should provide us required safety, security and support so that we can start the land preparatory work as scheduled," he added.

Confirming the relocation of staff, a senior executive of the company said the flash point came when the officer-in-charge of the Kujanga police station, Amarendra Panda, wrote a letter to Posco asking its employees not to enter the project site without prior police permission. "It is an irony that the police, instead of taking action against culprits who had abducted our staff and detained them illegally, has asked us not to enter the project site," he rued.

Sources said the government has virtually gone into an election mode, with only a year and half to go for the assembly elections.

The chief minister Naveen Patnaik was in no mood to push the project in the face of local opposition and fears of a Kalinga Nagar type situation, which would prove to be a huge political setback for him, they added.