Bastar villagers oppose Tata plant

The villagers in Lohandiguda block of Bastar district""where Tata Steel plans to set up a mega steel plant""have once again refused to give their land though the district administration started the land acquisition process.

The Bastar district administration served notices in three of the ten affected villages on Friday, asking to turn up in the office of land acquisition officer for hearing.

The decision of the administration to invite the villagers individually had given a new twist to the on-going protest of villagers against the proposed steel plant of Tatas.

"The villagers are irked due to the attitude of district administration that is trying to create division among the people," trade union leaders leading the villagers' stir against Tata's project said.

If the district administration was serious in ending the deadlock, it should have invited people of all the ten affected villagers for hearing instead of three, they added.

Tata Steel plans to set up a 5 million tonne per annum greenfield steel plant in Chhattisgarh with an investment of more than Rs 10,000 crore.

The company sealed a pact with the state government on June 4, 2005 for the same.

Two years have passed, but the government has failed to acquire land in the ten villages identified for the project in Lohandiguda block""about 40 km from Jagdalpur, the district headquarters of Bastar.

The villagers said it was also not justifiable on the part of administration to ask the villagers to travel 40 km and attend the hearing when it was earlier decided that joint hearing of all the affected villages would be held in Lohandiguda.

The change in strategy of district administration to allegedly manage a section of villagers to give up their protest and hand over their land so as to send message to the others seems to have boomeranged.

The villagers are holding a series of meeting for the last two days, finalizing their strategy to protest the administration's move.

The villagers reiterated that they would consider giving their land only when their 20-points demands were fulfilled.

One of the demands was land-for-land that the state government had refused to entertain.