School children want peace in POSCO project area

By Staff
|
Google Oneindia News

Kendrapada, May 4 (UNI) Hundreds of school children have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to restore peace and tranquility in the villages proposed to be acquired for the POSCO steel plant.

''POSCO or no POSCO, let the Kalinga Nagar or Nandigram incident not be repeated in the villages,'' letters addressed to the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister said.

POSCO Project Peace Committee General Secretary Gourahari Satpathy told UNI over phone that students of four high schools located inside the proposed POSCO site, have written the letters urging for peace in the area.

Mr Satapathy said the children panicked at the prevailing sitation in the villages with the presence of police force and their parents guarding the area day and night to prevent the entry of government officials for forcibly acquiring land for the project.

He claimed that so far over 3000 letters by the students had been posted to the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister and soon students of other schools in Jagatsignhpur district would follow suit.

Mr Satpathy said the children had neither opposed nor supported the project. ''What they want is peace and tension-free days so that they can pursue their studies,'' he said.

Mamata Swain, a VII class student, apprehended that the situation would lead to an 'explosive' turn if the administration tried to acquire land using force for establishment of the proposed plant.

Students under the banner of ''Banara Sena'' have also written letters to the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister to shift the plant to some other district while citing problems of displacement and livelihood issues of their parents.

South Korea steel major POSCO had been facing stiff resistance from the local people ever since it signed the MoU with the Orissa government in June 2005 to set up a Rs 51,000 crores steel plant,the biggest FDI in the country.

Meanwhile, a high level team led by Jagatsinghpur District Magistrate Pramod Kumar Meherda, Superintendent of Police Y K Jethua, Divisional Forest Officer A K Jena and other senior officials visited the POSCO site yesterday to conduct survey work and assess the loss and its impact on the area if POSCO set up a captive port near the Jatadhari river mouth by clearing the forest area.

UNI

For Daily Alerts
Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Settings X
X