BHUBANESWAR: Social activists including Medha Patkar and retired Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur on Sunday requested the Odisha government to withdraw all cases filed against the residents of Dhinkia village in Jagatsinghpur district for opposing a proposed steel project in their area.
Sajjan Jindal's JSW Group has proposed to set up an integrated steel plant on a plot in the village, which was earlier acquired for a steel project by South Korean firm POSCO.
Peoples' Commission (PC), a body of social activists led by Justice Lokur, heard the grievances of the villagers who have been opposing the project.
After hearing the people, the commission released an interim report with its observations and recommendations to the government.
"Residents of Dhinkia panchayat were not in favour of the project because of its negative effects on their livelihood and environment," the PC said.
"Due to the project, livelihood, forest rights, employment and cultural rights of the local people have been affected.
A lot of people have been beaten up while police cases have been filed against many and two people are still in jail," Lokur told reporters.
The activists alleged that nearly 100 cases have been registered against the villagers between 2019 and 2023.
In certain FIRs, names of several people were included, they alleged.
The PC demanded that all criminal cases allegedly imposed on the villagers should be withdrawn and coercive processes should cease.
Citizens have the fundamental right to peacefully oppose displacement besides having the freedom of expression and movement and they cannot be criminalised for exercising these rights, it said.
People have been forcibly evicted from the land on which they have forest rights and where they were cultivating betel vines and carrying out other agricultural operations, Patkar alleged.
The commission recommended that till the individual, community and cultural rights of the villagers are determined, no steps for eviction or any other coercive action should be taken by the state or any other agency.
In June 2005, the state government had signed an MoU with POSCO, a South Korean multinational corporation, to set up a 12 MTPA steel plant in Jagatsinghpur district.
However, the steel giant had to abandon its proposed Rs 52,000-crore project due to multiple reasons from delay in environmental clearances to protests by locals.
It withdrew from the project in March 2017.
Following POSCO's exit, in June 2017, the Odisha government transferred the land to the JSW Utkal Steel Limited (JUSL).
JUSL plans to build a 13.2 million tons per annum (MTPA) integrated steel plant that will also comprise a captive power plant of 900-megawatt capacity, and a cement grinding and mixing unit of 10 MTPA.