The Bengal Government has reacted rather sharply to a threat issued by a national power facility to remove Rs 10,000 crore power plant from Raghunathpur in Purulia district following continuing blockade by the locals who have been demanding jobs in the plant to let the project take off.
State Industries Minister Partho Chatterjee on Wednesday reiterated his earlier stance saying the Damodar Valley Corporation authorities were primarily responsible for the stalemate that had been created in the area. “The DVC is going back on its earlier assurance of giving jobs to those who lost land for the project,” he said adding the power facility should handle the unrest instead of blaming the Government.
Earlier DVC chief engineer Debashis Mitra speaking had said that the company would be forced to remove Rs 10,000 crore second phase of the power plant to some other destination if the locals continued to hinder work at the project site.
“We have already written to the District Magistrate to provide necessary administrative support so that we can carry forward the implementation work of the second phase of the project or else we will have to think shifting the project to some other destination,” Mitra had said.
The DVC insiders also explained how the locals egged on by some political interests were staging blockades on a regular basis at the site. The locals had stalled the work of the water corridor which was so vital for the project to start, they said. The total project is worth Rs 18,000 crore.
“Neither the administration nor the local political leadership have come forward to move even a twig in that respect and the company is sustaining a daily loss of crores of rupees” a senior official of the
DVC said adding the “people we approached have clearly told us that they cannot help unless an order came from Kolkata. They told us to write to the authorities in Kolkata and not at the local level.”