The efforts of the Jagatsinghpur district administration to begin land acquisition work for the Posco project at the earliest suffered a setback when its talks with the Unified Action Committee (UAC), a pro-Posco outfit, held on Monday at the Ersama block office ended inconclusively.
Even as the district administration is making all out efforts to resume land acquisition for the mega steel project from May 18, the UAC activists have decided to stall the process till their 29-point charter of demands is met.
"We support the project but that does not mean that people will accept whatever the government and the company decides”, said president of UAC, Anadi Rout.
“We have given suggestion to the district administration to defer land acquisition till all the issues of the project affected people are resolved. If the administration starts land acquisition, UAC would not co-operate in it”, he added.
At the meeting, UAC pressed for fulfilment of its 29-point charter of demands, prominent among them being jobs to one member of each project affected family and changing the method of measurement of betel vines and raising compensation for homestead as well as agricultural land.
It also urged the administration to keep the land acquisition process in abeyance till the renewal of MoU, which expired in June last year.
The committee members demanded that for calculation of compensation, the betel vines raised on government land need to be measured from 'stay to stay' instead of 'fence to fence', which would result in monetary losses to the beneficiaries.
Taking note of their concerns, Narayan Jena, the Jagatsinghpur district collector said, the district administration would follow a liberal policy on measurement. However, the UAC activists insisted on measuring of betel vines from ‘stay to stay' through an official declaration.
They also demanded a hike in compensation for both homestead and agricultural land as well as higher compensation for labourers engaged in betel vines.
"While land losers of Essar Steel's Paradip steel project are getting Rs 19.10 lakh per acre, the state government has decided to give Rs 17 lakh per acre to the land losers of the Posco project. Similarly, the price of area under betel vines is fixed at Rs 11.5 lakh per acre”, said Nirvaya Samantray, secretary, UAC.
“How can the value of agricultural land and homestead land be the same?”, he asked.
Landless labourers working in betel vines will get 20 per cent of the total compensation for the loss of vines, which is over and above the amount paid to the owners of the areas where the vines are grown. UAC has demanded that the benefit be hiked from 20 to 30 per cent.
Besides, they have also demanded that the contract work be given to local contractors during construction of the steel project.
The UAC has also sought resettlement of 75 families who were banished from their native villages by the anti-Posco activists.
Moreover, the committee demanded compensation for those betel vine farmers who had demolished their vines in 2008.
Sources said, a 2008 survey report talked about the existence of 1961 betel vines covering an area of 394.39 acres at the project site. After that survey, many farmers of Nuagaon and Gadkujang panchayat had demolished their betel vines after being coaxed by the Posco officials.
The company had paid them a compensation of Rs 6,000 per decimal at that time. These betel vines have not been included in the asset list of the recently concluded survey this year.
Local legislator Prasant Muduli; Sarojakant Chaudhry, additional district magistrate of Paradip; Surjeet Das, project officer (rehabilitation & resettlement) and special land acquisition officer Nrusingh Swain were present at this meeting.
