The government’s qualified green signal to South Korean steel giant Posco’s $12 billion steel mill and captive port in Orissa is a mixed bag: the true implications of the 60-odd conditions which Posco has to fulfil are still not clear. It is learnt there could be stumbling blocks such as the rehabilitation of around 10,000 cultivators and 471 families who till their own land in 11 villages. It is really surprising that it was left to the Orissa chief minister to ensure compliance — after all he is an interested party, in the sense that he was actively pushing the Posco project, perhaps to encourage further overseas investment in his state’s development. Local residents and those likely to be affected by the project have for long complained that neither chief minister Naveen Patnaik nor his ministers, or indeed anyone from Posco, have ever bothered to interact with them, find out how their livelihood will be affected or to indeed ask what they wanted. This was always left to lower-level functionaries. They also note that minister of state for environment Jairam Ramesh, considered in many quarters as a “green” champion, had also never bothered to visit the affected areas though he has always personally interacted with industry bodies to hear grievances. The locals say while they have heard Posco has built a township to rehabilitate the affected people, this might not necessarily be what they want.
The authorities’ utter disregard towards ordinary Indians affected by development projects is both shocking and surprising — after all the analysis and soul-searching on how movements like those of the Naxalites has grown in India, has the government really learnt no lessons? In this 62nd year of the republic, which we began just a week ago, New Delhi simply cannot act with a colonial mindset towards citizens who happen to be impoverished, unskilled and uneducated.
It appears Mr Ramesh might have had to capitulate in the face of tremendous pressure brought on him from within and outside the country, and to counter the rising criticism in many quarters that he is “anti-development” and that he and his ministry are impeding the nation’s growth. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on a recent visit to Seoul for a G-20 summit, had in fact given an indication to his South Korean hosts that the Posco project would go through. One by one, Mr Ramesh has had to approve a number of projects he had put under the scanner — Vedanta Resources, Navi Mumbai airport, the nuclear power projects in Jaipura in Maharashtra and Lavasa near Pune — even if with some “conditions”. The explanation is that these have a lot of “economic, technological and strategic” significance for the country. A South Korean minister had warned that the thousands of jobs which Posco would create could not be ignored. But what about the 10,000 or more people who stand to lose their livelihood? Nevertheless, it might be a tad unfair to call the minister of state for environment “Rollback Ramesh” in the way the NDA’s onetime finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, used to be called “Rollback Sinha”, after capitulating on a series of proposals in his Budget.
All this is not to deny the fact that development and job creation are desperately needed in this country. It needs only to be done with a lot more sensitivity. Posco, for example, had been offered an alternative site barely 4-5 km from the existing one. It is also not too late to sit down with the affected locals and discuss with them how their interests can be protected while the project moves ahead. If “inclusive growth” is to mean anything more than just a slogan, that could be the way forward.