Even as the agitation against land acquisition and establishment of the proposed steel project of POSCO continues, ground-levelling work for the venture may start in a few months as the Naveen Patnaik Government has been able to hand over 1,700 acres to the South Korean steelmaker.
The company needs 2,700 acres for an 8 million tonne capacity steel plant, but the State Government has not been able to hand over that much of land as it is yet to complete the land acquisition process.
The land acquisition process is likely to be resumed in the near future, according to official sources.
The land requirement of the company was scaled down from 4,004 acres to 2,700 acres after the company decided to establish an 8 million tonnes per annum capacity plant as against its initial plan 12 million tonnes per annum capacity.
The land use plan for the project was revised by excluding Dhinkia village after the agitation against land acquisition for the project was continued by the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti.
Meanwhile, the Sangram Samiti and organisations supporting it had decided to organise demonstrations on Friday to oppose land acquisition.
On the other hand, the State Government had not been able to revise the MoU for the steel project though it had expired in June 2010 after completion of five years. The modalities for the revision of the MoU are being worked out, according to sources.
