POSCO: Orissa to act after examining order

A day after Union Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh put the forest clearance for the Rs 54,000- crore POSCO steel project on hold,the state government said it would closely examine the MoEF order before taking any further action.

On Thursday,Ramesh had held back forest clearance,asking the state government to recognise the rights of the people of Dhinkia and Gobindpur villages in Jagatsinghpur district under the Forest Rights Act (FRA). He relied on the resolutions passed by the gramsabhas of the two villages on February 21 and 23 this year,rejecting the proposed diversion of forest land for the proposed project. The project is coming up in eight villages spread over three grampanchayats in Jagatsinghpur district.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday said his government would closely examine the MoEF order and take a decision. But senior officials said “though Ramesh referred to the February 21 and 23 resolutions of the two villages,the people living there can’t be called tribals or Other Traditional Forest Dwellers’’. “So how can they be given rights under FRA?” asked a senior SC/ST Department officer. “If the minister does not believe the state government,let him come personally to those two villages and see whether people there can be given land under FRA. They don’t have any documents to prove that the villagers lived there for at least three generations.”