The Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee asked Manmohan Singh to shift the plant to barren land, 7km away from its present Jagatsinghpur site.
Holding the Naveen Patnaik government responsible for the delay in the implementation of the proposed POSCO steel project, Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee Tuesday sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention to shift it to barren land near the present site in Jagatsinghpur.
"I told the Prime Minister about the fertile and multi-crop land at Dhinkia where the state government has identified land for setting up the POSCO project ... I informed him that vast barren land was available barely 7km away," OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik said after meeting Singh in New Delhi.
The POSCO project, the MoU for which was signed in 2005 and expired in June 2010 can never be implemented unless there is shift of the project site. "I told the PM that it is better late than never," he said.
The political leadership in the Biju Janata Dal government had not applied its mind before selecting the site for the country's biggest Foreign Direct Investment project and the project was facing opposition from the local people due to wrong selection of the site.
However, the previous Congress government in the state had denied permission to IOCL and a fertiliser company to set up their projects in the area.
Patnaik said he also appraised the prime minister that the district administration was unable to enter the core area of the proposed plant site due to stiff opposition from children, women and elderly people.
Patnaik demanded the ongoing CBI probe into the faulty implementation of the rural job scam under MGNREGA should be extended to all 30 districts instead of confining it within only six districts.
"Though the KBK (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) plan is being implemented in eight districts of the state, it has a limited impact on poor and tribal population," Patnaik told Singh.
There is an immediate necessity to formulate a special package with much larger and wider socio-economic programme for the Maoist-prone tribal and poor districts, he said.
Meanwhile, Orissa Steel and Mines minister Raghunath Mohanty said Posco was yet to give its views on certain points like the controversial iron ore swapping, mandatory job reservation for locals and possible change of water source for its proposed 12mtpa mega steel project near Paradip for renewing the MoU.
The state government cannot proceed with renewing the agreement unless it gets Posco's views, he said.
Mohanty had earlier announced that the Orissa government would renew the agreement by July end.
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