The socio-economic and forest survey work in the proposed Rs 52,000-crore (Rs 520-billion) Posco steel plant site near here was carried out today amidst heavy security, which was stepped up following a police lathicharge on anti-Posco demonstrators, officials said.
"Survey work for the mega project gained pace and progressed smoothly in Nuagaon gram panchayat area of Jagatsinghpur district," additional district magistrate Saroj Kanta Choudhury said.
Over 250 armed police personnel were deployed in the area where six teams from the district administration conducted the socio-economic and forest survey, he said, adding that the survey work would also continue on Friday.
While Choudhury claimed that villagers extended necessary cooperation for the survey, a panchayat functionary said there was protest by several locals who wanted the government to hold talks with them before undertaking any activities related to the steel project.
No untoward incident was reported from any place in the proposed plant site and the survey was conducted peacefully though some people did voice their opposition, police said.
Police had resorted to lathicharge on Wednesday to disperse anti-project agitators who had gathered in the proposed steel plant site in a bid to prevent the survey team from entering into Nuagaon panchayat for the exercise.
The survey work for the 12 mtpa steel plant, which began on May 25 and had been stopped since May 29 following stiff opposition by locals, resumed on Wednesday, a senior district official said.
The work was taken up after chief minister Naveen Patnaik held talks with local MLAs and MP and it was decided that the survey team would exclude Dhinkia, considered as the epicentre of anti-Posco agitation, from the project site.
Socio-economic and forest survey was completed in Gada Kujanga panchayat area during the first phase of work from May 25, Choudhury said. Meanwhile, two of the three people, arrested on Wednesday while trying to obstruct the survey work in Nuagaon, were forwarded to court, while one of them was released, police said.
Though Posco-India had inked memorandum of understanding with Orissa government way back in June 2005, not an inch of land has so far been acquired for the mega project in view of stiff protest from locals, according to whom the steel plant will displace them from their homeland and ruin their betel-leaf farms.
However, Posco and the government maintained that the project will bring prosperity and employment to an impoverished region.
