JSW Steel Plant: Most Villagers Support Project In Meeting Of Orissa HC Formed Committee

Bhubaneswar: More than 1,000 villagers on Saturday participated in the public consultation meeting of five-member committee, formed by the Orissa High Court to make an assessment of the ground situation at Dhinkia village, the site of the proposed JSW integrated steel plant, in Jagatsinghpur district.

The meeting was moderated by Jagatsinghpur collector and SP along with BDO and Tehsildar of Erasama. Besides, sarpanch of Dhinkia panchayat Kishore Parida and newly elected panchayat samiti member Gitanjali Bhoi were present.

The High Court advocates representing petitioners Prasant K Jena, Sukant Dalei and Omkar Devdas along with government advocates Debakanta Mohanty and Janmejay Cuttackia also attended the meeting.

The villagers from five villages of the panchayat including Pattna, Mahala, Govindpur, Trilochanpur and Dhinkia turned up at the meeting which was conducted amid deployment of police force.

More than 100 people put forth their opinions before the committee with the sarpanch giving favourable views for the proposed project. Around 15 of 100 villagers spoke against the project, while the rest supported the steel plant.

A division bench of the High Court, comprising Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice R K Patnaik, had directed the committee to visit the village again on March 5 and submit its report on March 8.

The high court issued the order on February 23 after the committee members submitted four reports separately of their visit to Dhinkia on February 19. The bench observed that the villagers could not interact with the committee members freely during the committee’s visit due to some incidents. The bench set the next hearing of the case on March 11.

It may be noted that the High Court formed the committee to take stock of the ground situation after the police resorted to lathi-charge on the villagers, who were protesting the drive to demolish betel vines in the proposed plant site in January. Several villagers were injured.

Later, three villagers filed petitions in the High Court against the alleged police action.

Also Read: JSW Steel Plant: Orissa HC Directs Committee To Revisit Project Village In Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur