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Bhubaneswar: Demanding scrapping of Posco's proposed Rs 52,000 crore steel project in Odisha, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) along with left parties on Saturday observed Black Day as a mark of protest.
While locals in Jagatsinghpur district held rallies and meetings at the proposed plant site near Paradip, left parties like CPI, CPI-M, CPI (ML) Liberation and CPI (ML) New Democracy staged demonstrations here and in other places.
Holding the state's BJD government and the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre responsible for creating problems for locals by trying to impose the project, the left parties asked Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Prime Minster Manmohan Singh to refrain from advocating for the South Korean steel major.
Democratically elected governments should give priority to people and not to any multi-national company, CPI state secretary Dibakar Nayak said, adding that June 22, the day on which Odisha government and Posco-India signed the MoU for the project in 2005, should be observed as "the day of betrayal".
The protesters also dubbed land acquisition, tree felling for Posco project as illegal as there was no MoU in force for the purpose as the one signed in 2005 had lapsed in 2010.
Today was the 8th anniversary of the state's MoU with Posco India.
Though the MoU had lapsed three years ago, the state government claimed a fresh document was likely to be signed soon.
"We are giving final touches to the draft MoU to be signed with Posco India as validity of the previous document is lapsed. The state administration will place the final document for approval of the Chief Minister within one month," Chief Secretary B K Patnaik said.
