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.

Mahendra Tanaya_Vamshadhara

Mahendratanaya next bone of contention
BHUBANESWAR: At a time when Andhra Pradesh and Orissa governments are involved in a legal fight in the Supreme Court over the Polavaram project, another dam project on the river Mahendratanaya by AP is turning contentious because of increasing local opposition.


The 'Save Mahendratanaya' movement (Mahendratanaya Banchao Andolan) wanted the State Government to move the Supreme Court over the issue as the AP Government had allegedly violated the 1962 agreement between the two states regarding the project.

Criticising the inaction of the State Government, convenor of the movement Srikant Padhi alleged that no action has been taken on the issue though Andhra government is proceeding with the project without any concern for the local people on this side of the border.

The State Government had planned to construct two anicuts on the river Bansadhara Bansadhara integrated project to thwart the designs of the Andhra government. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had laid the foundation of the two anicuts at Dambapur village on the Mahendratanaya and at Champapur village on the river Jalanga, a tributary of Mahendratanaya on April 30, 2008.

Padhi alleged that though both the projects had received administrative approval, work has not progressed during the last two years. These projects will provide irrigation facilities to thousands of tribals in Gajapati and Rayagada districts and drinking water to Parlakhemundi town, he said.

The seven demands raised by the movement include finalising the tender process of the two projects and immediate start of work. He said construction work should be handed over to the military engineering service if contractors refuse to take up the project because of fear from the Naxals.

A division of the military engineering service should be set up at Parlakhemundi, he said and added that the vacant posts of assistant engineer at Parlakhemundi and junior engineer of the integrated Bansadhara project should be filled up.

After flowing 56 km in Orissa, Mahendratanaya merges in Bansadhara in Andhra Pradesh. The Andhra Pradesh government has started Mahendratanaya project at Meliaput.

Save Mahanadi

Save Mahanadi' activists target Tata project
Correspondent
CUTTACK: Now the Mahanadi Bachao (Save Mahanadi) Andolan activists have targeted the proposed 1000 MW thermal power project of Tata Company near Naraj and have threatened that not a single drop of river water would be allowed to be diverted to this project.
Joining in a massive rally on Sunday organised by the locals who have been opposing the project for several other reasons, the leaders of Save Mahanadi organisation threw their weight behind the local people.
Rally taken out
Hundreds of locals, accompanied by outfit activists took out a rally in the locality and organized a public meeting at a nearby school playground which was attended among others by the outfit leaders like former minister Bijay Mohapatra, Samir Dey and several other leaders.
Urging the local people to vehemently oppose the project, the speakers pointed out that valuable agricultural land in the locality would be damaged if the proposed thermal power plant comes up in the area.
They also threatened that the project if at all comes up in the locality; it would not be allowed to draw water from Mahanadi River.
The locals had been opposing the project ever since the state government issued notification about the project in November 2008.
They say the thermal power would severely disturb the local environment and the Millennium city would be the hottest place in the state thereby putting the eight lakh populace in misery.