There are some stories which need to be repeated. This is not only because they are exemplary narratives or contain vibrant lessons for us but because their end is yet to be written. As one moves along, new characters, conversations and fresh configurations get added. in these tales there are people one has met, stood in solidarity with, and walked along when the need arose.
Today’s re-engagement takes us to Jagatsinghpur in Odisha where the setting up of a steel plant, port and ancillary infrastructure has met with stiff resistance for the last eight years. In this phase there have been many ups and several downs. There have been constants shifts of power with the highest offices of the Government of India intervening so that POSCO’s men and machines could find their way into their earmarked project site.
But a resilient local movement by a cluster of strong-willed villages stood its ground and continues to ensure that the proposed industrial design for the region does not take off.
This narration begins only in March 2012 when the national Green Tribunal (NGT) issued a strong judgment pushing back POSCO’s entry into the area. amongst many other contentions there were some important directions. First, a fresh review of the project was asked for based on the comments of earlier committees and the tribunal’s observations. Secondly, the 2011 order of the Ministry of environment and Forests (MoEF) giving POSCO their final environmental clearance was suspended. Thirdly, the total land being acquired by POSCO was limited to a 4 MTPA steel plant instead of a 12 MTPA.
This appeal against POSCOs 2011 approval was not filed by the movement but by social activists in the state of Odisha who had been consistently raising concerns about improper assessments and legal procedures – all of which had been submitted to the MoEF and its various committees set up to review the project over the years.
What followed was that the MoEF set up a review committee under K. Roy Paul, former Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation along with S.R. Wate, Director of National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and R. Ramesh, Director of National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management. The committee visited the area in August 2012, did not meet the protesting villages, and is believed to have filed its report to the MoeF. This report has neither been open to the public nor does it appear that the MoEF has taken any further action on it.
What is interesting is that due to years of protest and other delays, the first set of environmental approvals to PoSco, granted in 2007, lapsed in 2012. These were valid for only five years. During this time local resistance, solidarity, and lack of the final set of permissions under other designated laws disallowed POSCO from starting operations. There were efforts to forcibly enter the area, local clashes, episodes where
POSCO’s officials were prevented from entering, arrests of protesters and so on.
In early January this year, the residents of Dhinkia village which has been foremost in the struggle against the project, wrote to the chief Secretary and chairperson, State level Monitoring committee for implementation of the 2006 Forest Rights Act. it enclosed a resolution of the gram sabha of Dhinkia opposing diversion of forest land in violation of the FRA. The Act recognises the rights of tribal and other forest-dwelling communities to occupy, cultivate, use and protect areas within which they were residing before 13 December 2005. More than 2,000 people, says the letter, reiterated that the Fra has not been implemented in the villages of Dhinkia and Govindpur and in the hamlets of Patna and Mahala which are affected by the proposed POSCO project.
In May 2011, the MoEF had issued an order granting diversion of forest land for the project based on the state government’s assurance that no forest dwelling communities were residing in the project area and thereby no rights needed to be recognised. The MoeF accepted the word of the state government and not of the palli sabha of the village which had written to both the state and central government that due processes under the FRA had not been completed and therefore the said forest clearance could not be granted. This continues to be a contentious and unresolved issue.
The above set of regulatory and judicial twists and turns can be juxtaposed with the struggle against POSCO today. PoSco continues to deny that any illegalities have occurred and clarifies its track record on its website. ironically both the judgment of the NGT and the contentions of the MoEF’s 2010 Meena Gupta committee (especially its majority committee) clearly recorded that irregularities have taken place.
The power dynamics between the people, the State and the company continues. Efforts to acquire land remain stalled. The POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) has strongly condemned a statement by the Jagatsinghpur district collector, S.K Mallick, when on 28 December 2012 he was quoted as having said that work on the project would start the next day and consent from local residents had been taken.
POSCO’s tryst with India’s growth story brings out how simple and complex negotiations impact the everyday lives of people. resistance continues even as there are relentless attempts by the powerful to pave the way for POSCO. But is this story coming to a close? Ironically, my sense tells me otherwise.
