Bastar villagers offer land to Tisco

Chhattisgarh villagers have offered land Tata Steel to set up its proposed steel plant in Bastar district.

Tata Steel signed a pact with the state government on June 4, 2005, to set up a 5 million ton per annum greenfield integrated steel plant in Lokhandiguda block of Bastar district with an investment of Rs 10,000 crore.

The company applied for 2160.58 hectares for the project. However, the project could not get off with the villagers coming out in strong protest to hand over their land.

Despite the efforts of the district administration, the villagers could not be convinced even as the state government announced attractive packages for the rehabilitation of the people affected from the project. More than 150 landholders turned up to give their land and collected cheques from the administration.

"Over 150 landholders from four villages holding about 70 hectares of land had responded and handover their land to the administration," Bastar Collector G S Mishra said.

The administration had disbursed cheques of over Rs 3 crore to the villagers, Mishra said, adding that the development would propel the other villagers to follow the suit.

The administration, Mishra claimed, had received message from more than 1700 landholders that they were now willing to hand over their land for the project.

According to senior state officials, the attractive compensation package announced by the state government in September had paved way to break the ice.