JAGATSINGHPUR Apr 18. Miffed over state government failed to facilitate return of all 52 families to village who were driven away by Posco opponents from Dhinkia Gram Panchayat about six years ago for favouring the proposed Posco project, on Thursday victim families held an emergency meeting at Badagabapur transit camp and decided to march Navin Niwas and stage stir on 26 April demanding their smooth home return and awarding compensation.
The Leaders from the victim families informed that anti Posco villagers of Dhinkia the bastion of anti Posco bastion beat up us and drove us out of our Patana village in June 2007 after we refused to join with anti Posco agitation since then we have been residing in a makeshift camp at Badagabpur 10 km away from our native village receiving a paltry amount Rs 20 per head from the South Korean company daily.
The financial assistance given by Posco is totally insufficient to meet our requirement so also the makeshift one small tin room allotted to each family has come in dilapidated condition and unsafe for use , meanwhile state government has decided to exclude Dhinkia and Patana villages from the project ambit so we have proposed returning our home land in this regard we have apprised district administration and state government higher ups repeatedly but earned no result till date.
Recently we had approached National Human Rights Commission [NHRC] seeking our desire returning village , acting on the petition NHRC had asked state government and district administration to bring victim villagers back to their village interestingly nothing happened till date.
Several times district collector and few senior officers have visited the transit camp and exercised their lip service to our demand; only assurance and promise have been extended to us and no step yet taken for returning village, rued Chandan Mohanty victim family’s leader.
Amidst Posco land acquisition in Govindapur village we had presumed our land in Patna village would be acquired surprisingly our village left out from land acquisition so it is unjust to live with Posco aids, when we have landed property in our native village we demand returning village , said Khira Dalei who resides in transit camp.
However we have lost faith on district administration so decided all the victim families to march Navin Niwas , official residence of state chief minister Navin Patnaik at Bhubaneswar and to hold stir on 26 April seeking his intervention to solve our demands , victim families leaders added.
