No ‘go’ for Posco yet as Ramesh rejects Orissa’s assurance

Giving a boost to Orissa villagers opposing South Korean steelmaker Posco's Rs54,000-crore integrated steel plant and port project in Jagatsinghpura area of the state, the union environment ministry on Thursday refused to accept the assurance given by the state government that there were no traditional forest dwellers or tribals in the project area.

Two villages in the area, Dhinkia and Gobindapur, have come out strongly against the project. The Orissa government recently informed environment minister Jairam Ramesh that neither the people of these two nor of any other village had any claim under the Forest Rights Act over the land Posco wants for its project.

The two villages had asserted in their 'palli sabha' that they were eligible under the FRA to get rights on the land under dispute and that the state government had not implemented the FRA. The state government had asserted that the resolutions by the two village councils were not worth the paper they were written on.

But the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has asked the state government to complete the process of recognising and verifying the claims made as required by the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

Ramesh returned the assurance submitted by the state government on Wednesday, saying that the two resolutions need to be taken into account by the appropriate authority in the manner laid out by the forest rights law.

"Ignoring the two palli sabha resolutions … would be tantamount to violating the very essence of this legislation (FRA)," Ramesh said.