New Delhi /Bhubaneswar, Aug. 6: The Union minister of environment, Mr Jairam Ramesh, has stepped into a minefield by asking the Orissa government to stop all work related to the Rs 52,000-crore Posco project in Orissa. He has come into direct confrontation with the Orissa Chief Minister, Mr Naveen Patnaik, who had put his weight behind the project.
Reacting to the directive of the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) decision, Mr Patnaik told reporters in Bhubaneshwar that the state government would take “appropriate” and “correct” steps to see the project through.
The MoEF had appointed a panel that visited the Posco project recently in Orissa and asked for a revocation of the clearance to this company on the grounds that the company had reportedly violated the Forest Rights Act (FRA).
In an attempt to pre-empt the barrage of criticism that such a decision was bound to whip up, Mr Ramesh declared, “This decision has not been made with any malafide intention. But I know that this is bound to make the Chief Minister unhappy. We have to come up with an ecologically sustainable way of development.”
The Centre’s decision came nearly a week after the N.C. Saxena Committee submitted its report to the forest ministry. Mr Ashish Kothari, a member of the Saxena committee, who recently visited the project site had countered the state government’s claim that there were no traditional forest dwellers in the area.
The Supreme Court had in early 2010, given Posco the go ahead for starting the project using forest land but framers had protested against vacating their land to this steel giant. The South Korean steel giant had however convinced a section of the local people to accept compensation for their lands and as many as 170 persons had received compensation for their land acquired for the project.
The Posco spokesperson has however already indicated that they will raise this revocation issue with both the ministry of mines and with the Prime Minister’s office.