Opposing the establishment of the proposed steel plant of Posco India Private Limited in Jagatsinghpur district, the Navnirman Samiti activists staged a protest outside the company's office here on Friday.
Storm building
The Samiti activists, led by its convenor Akshay Kumar, stormed the Fortune Tower Building that houses the office of the company and demanded scraping of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed five years ago for the setting up of the proposed steel mill.
Holding banners, the protesters raised slogans against the Indian arm of South Korean steelmaker Posco. They urged the Naveen Patnaik government not to renew the MoU, which would expire next week. Some residents of Gobindpur village in the Erasama area also took part in the demonstration.
Six of the activists, including Mr. Kumar, were taken into custody by the Chandrasekharpur police. The demonstration was held hours before Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik met a group of pro-project villagers at the Secretariat here and heard their demands for revision of the resettlement and rehabilitation package being offered by the company.
The Chief Minister recently met the representatives of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, the organisation demanding shifting of the plant site from the Erasama area and promised them that he would visit the villages where people were opposing land acquisition for the venture.
The PPSS agreed to allow the survey work for the project, which was in progress before the Chief Minister's visit to the locality.
However, the organisation on Friday announced that it would continue its agitation against land acquisition in the gram panchayats of Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakujang.
The organisation said it would observe June 22 as Black Day, as it was doing in the past.
