The Chhattisgarh-based National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) Nagarnar has neglected the Odisha border villages in its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme, alleged local outfit Zilla Nagarika Surakhya O Sachetana Mancha.
Speaking to reporters, Mancha legal advisor Narshinga Tripathy said, "We have petitioned to Union Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and CM Naveen Patnaik about the neglect."
He said as per the norms and provision of NMDC, Nagarnar Chhattisgarh, more than 100 villages of Odisha’s Kosagumuda block in Nabarangpur district and Kotpad block in Koraput district which are at a radius of 6 km of the steel plant and mostly inhabited by the tribals and backward people, should have been included in the CSR programme.
As part of CSR, the NMDC has taken up multifarious initiatives and has implemented several development projects in the focus areas of Chhattisgarh like education, cultural development, potable drinking water and sanitation, healthcare, skill development, livelihoods support, agriculture and infrastructure development etc. However, bordering Odisha villages were completely neglected, alleged Tripathy.
Is this not prejudice and step motherly attitude meted out to the villages of Odisha by the NMDC? Tripathy asked.
"We also informed that after the construction of dams over the river Indravati for Nagarnar project, hundreds of villages of the Kosagumuda and Kotpad blocks of Odisha will be submerged in rainy season. The inhabitants of the villages will suffer untold miseries and difficulties due to flood," told Tripathy.
For the establishment of the steel plant, more than 90 per cent of raw materials like sand, boulders, chips, metal, bricks etc. are imported from Odisha, including the labourers and masons. However, due to the step-motherly attitude of the NMDC, the people here are getting nothing in return, Tripathy said.
The Mancha demanded inclusion of the peripheral villages of Odisha in the CSR activities under NMDC for the all-round development of the tribals and backward people near the project area.