South Korean giant Posco's integrated steel plant in Orissa could face another hurdle as the palli sabhas (local bodies set up to determine forest rights under the Forest Rights Act) of Dhinkia, Gobindpur and nearby villages plan to approve several hundred forest rights claims within the next 15 days.
Conditional clearance
In January, the Ministry of Environment and Forests granted a conditional forest clearance to the Posco project, provided the State government submitted assurances that the FRA was implemented in the area, and all valid forest rights claims settled.
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The Orissa government is now preparing to submit those assurances, but the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti has written to Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, claiming that any such assurances are false.
No assistance
“Without any assistance or statutorily required implementation steps from the State government, and despite the intense police presence and constant threat of violence, the people of the area and in particular of Dhinkia and Gobindpur villages have been completing the process of filling out claim forms and verifying rights claims and that several hundred such claims are expected to be approved by the respective palli sabhas within the next fifteen days,” said the letter.
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It adds that these palli sabhas are expected to start issuing notices against the Orissa government itself, under Section 8 of the FRA, claiming that the State's “blatantly false statements” constitute a criminal offence under Section 7 of the Act and Sections 192 and 219 of the Indian Penal Code.
The Samiti argues against the State government's position that there cannot be any “other traditional forest dwellers” in the area as the land was only notified as forestland in 1961.
Instead, they say that the State government's own maps show that the area was a forest from 1930, according to the definition used in Section 2 of the FRA.