A new railway line laid by the SAIL-run Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) has run into resistance from tribal communities in Odisha and opened old wounds. The government-run steel-maker shares a strained relationship with the region’s tribal communities and land has always been the trigger.
In this case, murmurs of unrest started about two months back when the communities got wind of the railway project. On Saturday, a protest that erupted when project work began on the outskirts of Rourkela ended in bloodshed. A 37-year-old agitator came under an earthmover and died, fuelling a conflict that left two dozen police personnel and administrative officials hurt. Although SAIL claims the project land as its own, the agitators were in no mood to allow it.
There is a history of distrust between RSP and the tribal inhabitants whose land was used for the plant way back in 1959. The acquisition of 32,128 acres for the plant and a dam left over 4,000 families dispossessed. A 2019 report by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) exposed the historical injustice meted out for India’s first public sector steel plant. The inhabitants were rehabilitated outside Rourkela, but given agricultural land 100-150 km away, leaving them at the mercy of daily wage work.
There were several instances of people not getting the new land records, or them being recorded in others’ names. RSP was supposed to compensate with jobs, but the NCST found it did not have systematic records to show it. Rather, people from other states and those not displaced were found on the list.
Poor living conditions, encroachment by others in their new areas, apathy from both the state government and RSP left them disenchanted. RSP also surrendered 4,500 acres of unused land to the state. The NCST took a strong view of the fact that, instead of returning it to the original owners, the administration was selling it to individuals and companies at a premium. Saturday’s conflict was all about the agitators’ demand for the restoration of the land.
RSP aims to hit a capacity of 9 million tonnes by 2030. But the people on whose land it’s built face an inhuman plight. The irony is it’s happening on Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram’s home turf. The least the state and central governments could do is pay heed to their own ST panel’s recommendation.