The brigade which is spearheading an agitation against the establishment of two mega multi crore projects such as the Subarnarekha port as well as a petrochemical unit on Wednesday vowed not to leave even an inch of land for the projects.
Several speakers, including rights activist and former Minister Panchanan Kanungo, Prafulla Samantra, senior journalist Rabi Das, former MLA Kishor Das, Chitta Sarangi and Tapas Praharaj echoed their voices against the projects in a meeting held under the leadership of local leader Arun Jena at Balibila Hatapadia here which was attended by hundreds of villagers under six GPs of the block which are going to be affected by the projects.
They said that during the initial commission of Paradip port while around 15,000 people were working, currently, after 30 years the workers strength had declined to about 3,000 as the port had adopted mechanised processes. With the increase of machineries activities the manpower had reduced drastically. After the port in Baliapal, the minerals of high value would be exported to other countries and big companies and corporate would earn huge profit but on the contrary, a fertile patch of land used for versatile crops including paddy, coconut, betel vine and cashew nut would be destroyed forever. This would lead to loss of livelihood of hundreds.
More so, there is no official announcement regarding job for the land losers, they maintained. Most of speakers recalled the ‘Ghati Andalon’ which was held in eighties against establishment of National Test Range (NTR) and how villagers could succeeded in not allowing project through agitations. They said a similar agitation would be held to oppose projects.