Odisha is a classic case of why India's growth story has gone sour. Dhrutikam Mohanty probes.
Why is India’s growth story not going as per the drawing board? Because its politicians and people have developed the uncanny ability to turn every single project into a personal commercial enterprise and public spectacle.
No better example of this economic slowdown than Odisha where some of the biggest industrial projects that India could have witnessed are languishing because of petty politicking, utter lack of vision, downright blackmail and a deeply flawed land compensation policy.
Its best illustration? Posco's Rs 52,000 crore steel plant in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district which was set to fetch the country's largest ever FDI of Rs 52,000 crore. Eight years after the MoU was signed between the state government and the company, the project remains where it was.
In fact, it has deteriorated. What should have by now become a throbbing business hub, Gobindpur, the site of the proposed Posco plant, is a blood-splattered battle ground, victims of a bloody anti-Posco agitation that rears up every now and then. The Posco project become controversial when the land acquisition process began. Displacement became the core issue and gave birth to a well-organized anti-Posco movement. Though the state government is now working towards acquiring land, questions are now being asked about the veracity of the MoU which lapsed on June 21, 2010.
On March 2, three people were reported killed in Gobindpur. In an ongoing battle of attrition, the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samity (PPSS), the organization spearheading the movement against the project, said ``Posco and state-sponsored goons' hurled bombs killing three villagers in the district. The district administration says the three who died were in fact making bombs. “We had informed the police but no one came to our help,” says PPSS spokesperson Prashant Paikray.
The killings took place a day before the final phase of land acquisition for the Posco project was to be concluded in an area notified by the Industrial Development Corporation of Odisha (IDCO).
Amid consistent protests, IDCO has acquired about 2,000 acre of land. The attempt now is to get an additional 700 acre in a topography dominated by betel-veins, agricultural waste lands and sweet water zones.
On March 5, 12 platoons of the state armed police led by the Jagatsinghpur DC and SP entered Gobindpur village and acquired more then 25 betel vines, a source of local livelihood. The move was resisted by force. So just when the world was preparing to celebrate International Women’s Day, local women had no hesitation in marking it by a ‘half-naked’ protest to stop land acquisition. The PPSS alleges that women protestors were assaulted by policewomen.
Though the state government has suspended the acquisition temporarily, tension prevails. An earlier attempt in February to takeover land in Gobindpur was similarly thwarted by local campaigners with the backing of a feverish global campaign led by activists worldwide.
A frustrated Posco is now pulling out all stops to make the project viable. Recently South Korea's Ambassador to India met Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and expressed concern. But that in itself may not be enough.
According to the state economic survey 2012-13, the state government has signed MoUs with 94 reputed investors but most of them are stalled for reasons connected to land acquisition, environmental violations and agitations against displacement.
Posco's current status has now invited comparisons with other proposals which have been held up for long periods in Odisha. For instance Tata Iron and Steel's Kalinga Nagar proposal in Jajpur district, where 14 tribals protesting the Tata plant were shot dead by the police in January 2006. Or the Utkal Alumina project, a subsidiary of Birla group's Hindalco. After 20 years and investments of over Rs 500 crore, the 1.5-million-tonne alumina refinery project is yet to see the light of the day. As the company prepared to give a final push to complete the refinery work by the first quarter of 2013, protesters organized a meeting at Maikanch, near the project site in Rayagada, to pay tribute to three persons killed in police firing on agitators protesting land acquisition 12 years ago.
Last week Kumar Mangalam Birla met Naveen Patnaik with the same request as the Korean envoy – fast track our industrial projects. Though the Aditya Birla group has proposed to set up an integrated aluminum complex with an investment of Rs 11,000 crore, land acquisition has come in the way of it taking off the ground.
Ditto with the world’s largest steel maker Arcelor Mittal. Land acquisition for it’s 12 million tonne per annum (MTPA) steel plant in mining-rich Kendujhar district has not concluded even though a MoU with the state government was signed in 2006. The MoU which expired on December 31, 2011 is now pending renewal.
Along with Mittal the state government had signed MoUs with Uttam Galva Steel and Sterlite group a few years ago: the results, however, do not vary.
Anil Agarwal-owned Vedanta Alumina is yet another loser. It was forced to shut its one million tonne per annum alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in the state's Kalahandi district due to non-availability of bauxite, 15 years after state-owned Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) signed over it’s rights to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills, which houses the primitive clan Dangiria Kandhas.
Why is India’s growth story not going as per the drawing board? Because its politicians and people have developed the uncanny ability to turn every single project into a personal commercial enterprise and public spectacle.
No better example of this economic slowdown than Odisha where some of the biggest industrial projects that India could have witnessed are languishing because of petty politicking, utter lack of vision, downright blackmail and a deeply flawed land compensation policy.
Its best illustration? Posco's Rs 52,000 crore steel plant in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district which was set to fetch the country's largest ever FDI of Rs 52,000 crore. Eight years after the MoU was signed between the state government and the company, the project remains where it was.
In fact, it has deteriorated. What should have by now become a throbbing business hub, Gobindpur, the site of the proposed Posco plant, is a blood-splattered battle ground, victims of a bloody anti-Posco agitation that rears up every now and then. The Posco project become controversial when the land acquisition process began. Displacement became the core issue and gave birth to a well-organized anti-Posco movement. Though the state government is now working towards acquiring land, questions are now being asked about the veracity of the MoU which lapsed on June 21, 2010.
On March 2, three people were reported killed in Gobindpur. In an ongoing battle of attrition, the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samity (PPSS), the organization spearheading the movement against the project, said ``Posco and state-sponsored goons' hurled bombs killing three villagers in the district. The district administration says the three who died were in fact making bombs. “We had informed the police but no one came to our help,” says PPSS spokesperson Prashant Paikray.
The killings took place a day before the final phase of land acquisition for the Posco project was to be concluded in an area notified by the Industrial Development Corporation of Odisha (IDCO).
Amid consistent protests, IDCO has acquired about 2,000 acre of land. The attempt now is to get an additional 700 acre in a topography dominated by betel-veins, agricultural waste lands and sweet water zones.
On March 5, 12 platoons of the state armed police led by the Jagatsinghpur DC and SP entered Gobindpur village and acquired more then 25 betel vines, a source of local livelihood. The move was resisted by force. So just when the world was preparing to celebrate International Women’s Day, local women had no hesitation in marking it by a ‘half-naked’ protest to stop land acquisition. The PPSS alleges that women protestors were assaulted by policewomen.
Though the state government has suspended the acquisition temporarily, tension prevails. An earlier attempt in February to takeover land in Gobindpur was similarly thwarted by local campaigners with the backing of a feverish global campaign led by activists worldwide.
A frustrated Posco is now pulling out all stops to make the project viable. Recently South Korea's Ambassador to India met Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and expressed concern. But that in itself may not be enough.
According to the state economic survey 2012-13, the state government has signed MoUs with 94 reputed investors but most of them are stalled for reasons connected to land acquisition, environmental violations and agitations against displacement.
Posco's current status has now invited comparisons with other proposals which have been held up for long periods in Odisha. For instance Tata Iron and Steel's Kalinga Nagar proposal in Jajpur district, where 14 tribals protesting the Tata plant were shot dead by the police in January 2006. Or the Utkal Alumina project, a subsidiary of Birla group's Hindalco. After 20 years and investments of over Rs 500 crore, the 1.5-million-tonne alumina refinery project is yet to see the light of the day. As the company prepared to give a final push to complete the refinery work by the first quarter of 2013, protesters organized a meeting at Maikanch, near the project site in Rayagada, to pay tribute to three persons killed in police firing on agitators protesting land acquisition 12 years ago.
Last week Kumar Mangalam Birla met Naveen Patnaik with the same request as the Korean envoy – fast track our industrial projects. Though the Aditya Birla group has proposed to set up an integrated aluminum complex with an investment of Rs 11,000 crore, land acquisition has come in the way of it taking off the ground.
Ditto with the world’s largest steel maker Arcelor Mittal. Land acquisition for it’s 12 million tonne per annum (MTPA) steel plant in mining-rich Kendujhar district has not concluded even though a MoU with the state government was signed in 2006. The MoU which expired on December 31, 2011 is now pending renewal.
Along with Mittal the state government had signed MoUs with Uttam Galva Steel and Sterlite group a few years ago: the results, however, do not vary.
Anil Agarwal-owned Vedanta Alumina is yet another loser. It was forced to shut its one million tonne per annum alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in the state's Kalahandi district due to non-availability of bauxite, 15 years after state-owned Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) signed over it’s rights to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills, which houses the primitive clan Dangiria Kandhas.
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