Orissa villagers protest Essar Steel dredging work

Hundreds of villagers under the banner of Gramya Suraksha Samiti and Paradip Krushak Mancha protested the dredging work of Essar Steel in Mahanadi River near Paradip. They were agitating over non fulfillment of their demands.

The agitation affected the sand filling work of the land acquired by the company for setting up of a six million tonne steel plant.

Villagers alleged that Essar Steel was trying to purchase private land for the project at lesser price using land mafias and ignoring the claims of the affected villagers for higher compensation. Besides they accused the company of violating costal regulation zone act, causing soil erosion, giving preference to outsiders in employment and harassing contract labour engaged in construction work.

Mr Bhagban Swain secretary of Paradip Krushak Mancha said that the company is dredging the shore line of the river in stead of its middle portion which has resulted in the river ingression into the agricultural land on the river bank.

He said that farmers are unable to cultivate paddy as the saline water has submerged their land. The company is yet to give compensation to the affected farmer. Hence, the villagers marched to the site where the company is conducting the dredging and stopped the work demanding payment of compensation.

Earlier, the villagers had protested the dredging work on three occasions following which the Essar Steel authority and district administration had given assurance to conduct survey about the soil erosion and damage suffered by the farmers by technical experts. But later nothing happened and ignoring the demands of the affected people, the company restarted the dredging work on Mahandai River. In protest, the irate villagers stopped the dredging work.

President of Gramya Suraksha Samiti, Tofan Swain said that the organization would hold an awareness meeting at Bhubaneswar on November 7 to highlight the plight of the villagers. On the other hand, Kujang tahsildar Basudev Pradhan said, the necessary permission for dredging has been given by the Cuttack division of Irrigation Department of the state government.