POSCO the development project which is set to push few more below the poverty line

POSCO project India’s biggest ever FDI is set to push a few more of Indians below the poverty line.

Yes the biggest FDI with a total worth of Rs 54,000 cr is set to push more people below the poverty line.

The steel plant which is going to be established at Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa would displace 4000 families (though the report of former environment ministry Meena Gupta claims it to be merely 700 families). Apart from this the project will demolish a total of 1877 betel vines and 31 prawn ponds from the area. Now it is on the basis of these vines and ponds that the average per capita income of the residents of these regions is far above the recently released national average of around Rs3700 monthly income of a family. As per local estimates on an average the monthly income of residents is around Rs9000.

More over it once again reflects the commitment of the government towards the GDP based development the so called aam admi is nowhere in the radar of this sort of development. The way environment minister Jairam Ramesh succumbed under the weigh of massive FDI reveals the bitter truth that development is only meant for the handful of affluent. As the whole POSCO project unfolds it is quite evident that its not the majority which influences the decisions but the affluent.

Coming back to the history of POSCO in India, it got the environmental clearance in the year 2007 itself. The then environment secretary Meena Gupta gave the clearances. But later following the protests of the residents the environment minister Jairam Ramesh constituted a four member committee to look into the matter, Interestingly the same Meena Gupta was one of those four members who were in this community. Here what a democracy we have, the person who gave those clearances was asked to check out the irregularities in it.

More interestingly while the other three members of the committee univocally ruled down the environmental clearances given earlier to POSCO in the report they submitted on October 18, 2008. Based on their findings they said that the environmental clearance given to POSCO is based on illegal grounds and it should be revoked. These members based on their findings went to the extent of saying that the Orissa government and the POSCO have connived to grab the land of the poor and resorted to unfair means to get the environmental clearances.

But contrary to this as expected, the fourth member of this committee Meena Gupta said in her report which she submitted separately that all the clearances given earlier should continue (how can she find the flaws with the clearances which she herself gave) and said that they should be continued provided with some conditions.  

But more interestingly the report of these three persons was not considered instead the report of Meena Gupta was considered based on which the environment Jairam Ramesh has given the green nod to the project with some riders as suggested by Meena Gupta.

Though the recent green nod has sparked fresh protests in the region but fate of those protests could be well estimated considering our union government’s commitment to GDP based growth.