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BHUBANESWAR, June 24 (IPS)-fourteen Satikanta Sahu loves going to school, but these days, he prefers to spend time manning the barricade and facing down the policemen in Sandy coastal village of Govindpur India State of Orissa.
While his mother and their neighbors are embracing the sands ground to form a human barricade 24 hours on 24, Sahu works committees, bringing their drinking water and occasionally shouting slogans.
Its slogan scolding the Government of Orissa for plot to wipe out their village to give way to a steel plant of 12 billion dollars. The plant, to be built and operated the South Korea Pohang Steel Company (POSCO), will have a capacity of four million tonnes and is advertised to be the largest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in India, the third largest economy in Asia.
The Government of Orissa said that the plant needs a total of 3.719 hectares, of which only about 150 acres are private land, the rest being forest land and Government. But the 150 hectares which are highly controversial, because they are home to 613 households which will move the plant.
These families are concentrated in Govindpur and the nearby village of Dhinkia, where they make a living growing betel leaves.
At the forefront of the protest are women and children, Sahu. "I love going to school. But I've been here for many days now, because this is our livelihood, "she says. "We want POSCO to return. We will not allow the designs of Naveen Patnaik (Chief Minister of Orissa) succeed. "
As India tries to attract foreign investment and industrialization, faces resistance from villagers and farmers are reluctant to part with the land on which they are rooted. According to a study last year by the Chamber of commerce leader ASSOCHAM, delays in land acquisition are threatening investment by 100 billion dollars, while they are stalled at least 22 large-scale projects in steel 82 billion dollars due to protests by farmers and activists.
While continuing the protest by over 2,000 people against POSCO, the Government of Orissa has distributed more than 800 police to the site.
The villagers, under the umbrella of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (Ppss, which means to resist POSCO group) have formed a barricade at three levels, at the entrance of the village and keep a vigil round-the-clock.
The Government of Orissa has called the move by acquiring a Peaceful process. The protesters and activists say, however, that the Government is forcing them fraudulently handing out a huge number of police officers in the area.
"The total 3.719 hectares needed for the project, 2.958 hectares is land of the forest for which we requested clearance from the Ministry of environment of the Federal Government," Minister of industry of Orissa, Raghunath Mohanty told IPS.
"About 608 hectares have surfaces (Government). We need to acquire only 152 acres of private grounds, where approximately 613 families are displaced, "informs Mohanty.
While the Government has decided to temporarily halt land acquisition in the face of protests, the villagers say they fight to their last breath and keep constant vigil. From Jun 8 onwards, over 400 students joined the protest, meeting with more than 2,000 women and elderly members. Now, activists are planning hold classes in the first line, so that students can keep complaining and not lose their studies.
"The Government calls a program of acquisition of the land of peace, while the truth is that meetings are in blue printing and administration is preparing to enter Govindpur forcefully," says the Chief Ppss Prashant Paikray.
Activists fear that the Government is planning a repeat of Kalinganagar, another area in the Jajpur district of Orissa. There, in January 2006, tribal people protested the construction of a steel plant from India's Tata Group and iconic were shot by police, causing the deaths of 12 people.
"Why is the Government and the State upset over the so-called largest FDI, when we have for future generations we remain happy and prosperous with our vibrant economy of pan (betel), mina (fish) and dhan (paddy) without any project so that promises only to destroy everything around us?" asks Abhay Sahoo, one of the leaders of the protest movement.
"This is an area of the country where the forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006 has seriously violated and various Government appointed commissions corroborated that, ' says Sahoo.
This year, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh of India gave the go-ahead to POSCO project under certain conditions. Yet a Panel established by the Ministry itself suggested last October that the project violated coastal regulations and laws the rights of the forest.
The four-member Panel, headed by former Secretary of the environment, Meena Gupta India probed the matter and differed in their opinions. But the majority of the three members of the panel recommended the withdrawal of the clearance of environmental data to POSCO in 2007.
Most of the Group of experts said POSCO-India Pvt. Ltd. has not been able to deal with all matters relating to notifications of coastal areas and has identified a number of serious lapses and breaches, including the Suppression of the facts.
Later, in a press release, POSCO said "never violated any law or the procedure to obtain any Government clearance required for anything."
"After five long years of MOU (Memorandum of Understanding), we were not able to start any task, thanks to our efforts to get all the necessary legal clearances before starting any operation," said POSCO.
While POSCO seems to have overcome the obstacle of environmental clearance despite the opinions of the Panel, for now, only human barricades and unyielding resolve stand in way of POSCO villagers.
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