Meena Gupta, the former union environment secretary heading the four-member central team said the committee, is likely to submit its report in about two months.
The central team sent to ascertain the implementation of Forest Rights Act at the proposed Posco steel plant site here winded up its field visit today.
The team will now meet supporters and opponents of the Rs51,000 crore project and NGOs and also hold discussions with state government officials, officials said.
Meena Gupta, the former union environment secretary heading the four-member central team said the committee, is likely to submit its report in about two months.
During interaction with villagers at Noliasahi under Gada Kujanga, one of the three gram panchayats in Posco's proposed plant area, Ratnakar Behera, president of Jangal Surakshya Committee, told the team that the village forest was one of the oldest in the area and the residents were dependent on the income from betel vines for the past three generations.
"If the Posco plant comes up in the area, we will be left with no other source of livelihood," Behera said.
He was contradicted by Nakula Sahu, sarpanch of Gada-Kujanga, who said betel vines were not very old in the area.
A few old timers fell at Gupta's feet at Nuagaon and pleaded with her to save them from being displaced from their ancestral fertile land.
"The Saxena committee had given a favourable report. Please help us by submitting a similar report," they pleaded while claiming that the forests found place in the record of Gupteswar Mahadev of Gada Kujanga and "Madala Panji", the temple almanac of Sri Jagannath temple at Puri.
Opposing claims by the pro-Posco camp that the area had no tribals, Suresh Mohapatra, president of Bhitamati Surakshya Mancha, cited the example of Hema Hembram, a tribal woman who is the ward member of Ward No 9.
Tribals have been staying in the area for generations and the government had issued them land patta in 1920 and 1932.
"The district administration has destroyed our betel vines in large tracts in clear violation of the Forest Rights Acts," he said.
The central team also visited Patna under Dhinkia grampanchayat and met the 52 pro-plant families resettled in camps set up by Posco.
The families said the area had no tribal inhabitants, no betel vine farming was carried out there and casurina plants were used only for firewood.
"There is no forest produce as claimed by project opponents...If the Posco plant is established in the area it will help the people a great deal by providing employment opportunity and strengthening infrastructure," they said.
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