Left to meet PM over Posco plant

The Left parties will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, along with the leaders of the Orissa Gana Parishad (OGP) and the Janata Dal(Secular), to let him know that by sending out an invitation to set up a steel plant in Orissa, the Naveen Patnaik government has "allowed South Korean firm Posco to plunder the state's iron ore reserves".

The state units of the CPI and the CPI(M), the OGP and the JD(S) have made their opposition to the proposed agreement between the Orissa government and South Korean steel major Posco already known.

They contend that the company was seeking three to four times the iron ore as compared with what was required for a plant of three million tonne capacity.

"The board of directors (of the company) has approved a plant of three million tonne capacity. However, the company is seeking raw material for a 12 million tonne capacity plant. The state government and the central government are colluding to hand over one-third of the entire iron ore resources of the state to one company," Nityanand Pradhan, state secretary, Orissa state council of the CPI, said.

Pradhan said he would appeal to the Prime Minister to ensure that Posco procured only the requisite amount of ore from the Orissa Mine Corporation (OMC).

"What is the commitment that the Orissa government has given to Posco and how far will it be helpful to the country is something that we have ask," said D Raja, CPI national secretary. Raja will be attending the meeting with the Prime Minister on June 17.

The CPI, the CPI (M), the OGP and the JD(S), which comprise the Left-Democratic opposition to the Patnaik government in Orissa, decided at a meeting on Sunday to work out their plan against the "invitation extended by the state government to Posco to plunder Orissa's iron-ore reserves".

It was decided at the meeting that a delegation from the state, along with central Left leaders, would meet the Prime Minister and submit a memorandum detailing its objections to the Posco proposal and the attempts to divest Nalco.

Talking in Bhubaneswar a few days ago, CPI General Secretary AB Bardhan had said the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government should convene a co-ordination meeting to discuss the Posco project.

Though Posco had sought 960 million tonnes of iron ore originally from the state government, it had scaled the figure down to about 500 million tonnes during the course of negotiations. The Orissa government and Posco are scheduled to sign a memorandum of understanding for the plant on June 22.