Veerappa Moily, the new Minister of Environment and Forest (MOEF), audaciously cleared POSCO’s Steel Project, violating all norms, just before the arrival of the President of South Korea, Park Geun-Hye’s visit to India.
The Environment Ministry, in a dishonest sleight of hand, is turning an integrated project into convenient compartments and giving clearances separately to each one of them in a gradual manner to deceive the public. As the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) says, “You can’t separate mines from the plant and the plant from the port. You can’t also ignore the fact that certain matters are still tried in National Green Tribunal.”
The people in Dhinkia, Patna, Govindpur and Nuagaon villages have taken a resolve to intensify our struggle at any cost and to ensure that POSCO is ousted from Odisha’s soil. To protest against the coalition of two hostile governments (in the state and at the centre) on POSCO issue and to protest against atrocities launched on our democratically protesting population PPSS is organizing a massive Dharna in Dhinkia on January 15, 2014. A similar protest will also be organized in the capital city of Bhubaneswar. Solidarity groups have also decided to launch similar protest in other cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Bangalore, Chennai etc. In solidarity, the JNUSU, Delhi Solidarity Group, AISA and others organized a Citizens’ Protest at the Environment Ministry.
