POSCO gets green signal

IN DHINKIA village in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district, residents gathered around fragile bamboo gates, armed with sticks, brooms and lathis. The gates and improvised weapons were meant to keep government officials out. The residents expected a visit from them any day after the Union environment ministry gave environmental clearance to South Korea’s Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO) to build its steel plant along with a captive power plant and a port in Jagatsinghpur.

The plant with a capacity of 12 million tonnes per annum was earlier granted clearance in 2007 but violent protests by people opposing land acquisition stalled the project (see ‘Police clears way for POSCO’, Down To Earth, June 15, 2010). The ministry then decided to review the project. Last October, majority of the members of a review committee constituted by the ministry recommended that the clearance to the project should be revoked. The committee objected to the shoddy environmental impact assessment (EIA) and stressed on the need for a comprehensive EIA of the steel plant and the port (see ‘POSCO review body divided’, Down To Earth, November 15, 2010).

The latest decision of the ministry on January 31, allowing the project, angered protesters when they received the news. “We will not allow POSCO at the cost of the thriving agricultural economy of the region,” said Abhay Sahoo, leader of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) that has been spearheading the campaign against the project. He said the plant would affect 22,000 people living in Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadkuganj gram panchayats.

Some residents of Dhinkia, the epicenter of the anti-POSCO movement, said they earn enough from betel and cashew plantations and do not want to labour in a steel plant. “We will fight to our last breath if the government tries to take our land,” declared Sahoo.

Will conditions apply?

The ministry, while giving clearance to POSCO, has put 18 new conditions for the steel plant and 31 for the port. In addition to these, POSCO has been asked to comply with conditions of clearances granted in 2007. “The new and reviewed clearance has not introduced any material changes,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general of the Delhi non-profit Centre for Science and Environment. One of the conditions for the port clearance has sought a comprehensive EIA, which is proof that the present EIA does not assess the impact sufficiently, said Bhushan.