Posco: Parties move Governor for judicial probe

BHUBANESWAR: Leaders of five political parties on Monday met Governor M C Bhandare seeking his intervention for a judicial probe into the violence near the proposed Posco plant site in Jagatsinghpur district which left one dead. Leaders of CPI, CPM, Forward Bloc, RJD and Samajwadi Party submitted a memorandum to the Governor and registered their protest against the project-related work in the proposed Posco plant in the absence of an MoU. The memorandum said a private company had been assigned to construct a coastal road to link Paradip and Posco plant area without floating any tender when a fresh MoU is yet to be signed between the State Government and the South Korean steel major, CPI’s State secretary Dibakar Nayak said. The leaders alleged that the company was using private militia to undertake road construction by terrorising people instead of taking the help of police. One person was killed in the clash between anti-Posco villagers and ‘hired goons’ engaged by a contractor on December 14, the parties said. The State Government failed to take any precautionary measure to prevent violence during construction of the coastal road though the situation in the area was already tense, the memorandum said. They claimed in a statement that the Governor had agreed to visit the Posco area in January.  The Governor told the delegation that he would advise the State Government to defer land acquisition for the project till passage of the Bill relating to the land acquisition in Parliament, Nayak claimed.