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Declare Posco public hearing null and void say participants

New Delhi, 15 April 2007: Amid overwhelming opposition to proposals by South Korean steel giant POSCO there were a handful of pro and undecided voices. But speakers at today’s public hearing were united in rejecting the validity of the hearing itself.

Despite calls for postponement and a location nearer the affected villages, the hearing – a legal requirement under Environmental Impact Assessment guidelines – went ahead as planned in Kujang, some 25 kilometers away from villages that would be cleared under Posco proposals for a steel plant and marine port in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district. Of the 500-600 people who took part, less than 20 percent were from villages directly affected.

“The mood was against the POSCO plans. People clearly do not want to see mass displacement from land and livelihoods and have serious concerns over the environmental social and economic impacts,” said Madhumita Ray of ActionAid who was at the hearing.

“But if the government has any decency they would declare this hearing null and void. The meeting was held too far for many affected people to take part, in direct contravention of EIA guidelines. That was the resounding view of those who spoke, whether they were pro or anti POSCO or undecided,” added Ray.

“We are relieved to see that those villagers who did make the journey and wanted to speak out against the Posco plans were not barred from entry. And that their objections were clearly voiced,” said Ray.

Speaker after speaker raised concerns about the project. A retired teacher from one of the villages under threat was the first to speak. He was skeptical about promises of jobs in the new industries:

“I have seen so many companies have come and go with false promises about employment and local benefits. These industries do not provide employment to our people and they want to grab our land.”

A farmer asked if the royalties that had been paid to the government for more than 40 years on betel crop exported to different parts of India counted for nothing: “There is guaranteed income from betel for people and the state, how will that economy be replaced? What guarantees can Posco give?”

Even those who did not speak against the project raised objections over the location of the public hearing: “I don’t mind POSCO but the government must come and talk to us in our villages, not far away like this,” said one local man.

Others raised concerns over local divisions emerging over the Posco question. “Deal with the law and order situation in our villages first, then come and ask us if we want Posco,” said one resident.

Notes to Editor

Current Posco plans would bring a total of 5,20,000 million rupees, the highest ever Foreign Direct Investment in the country and require as much as 4,004 acres of land to be acquired at the project site.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Orissa and POSCO allows POSCO to exploit the best of the coal and iron ore mines of the State for a period of 30 years and to construct their own railways, roadways and an 86 km long pipe-line for carrying fresh water from Mahanadi barrage at Cuttack to salinity-prone project site at Jatadhar mouth, as well as a steel plant and marine port.

Project plans involve displacement of seven villages from three panchayats. Protests by local people have been going on for the last 14 months. Villagers have erected guarded barricades to prevent state authorities or company personnel from entering their villages.

ActionAid has been working with fishing communities, dalits and other marginalised groups in the area since the super cyclone of 1999 and had written to the central Ministry of Environment and Forests requesting that the public hearing be postponed and local people be given the mandatory one month to go through documents before the meeting.