Tension prevailed in front of the office of the Additional District Magistrate (ADM) here on Monday as hundreds of displaced persons of the Rourkela Steel Plant staged demonstration demanding return of the unutilised land by the plant.
They cited an order of the National Commission for SC and ST where the RSP was directed to return the land to the original land owners. After failure of their talk over the issue with the Rourkela ADM, the protesters gheraoed him and did not allow the staff members and ADM to come outside.
later in the afternoon, on police escorts, the ADM and employees were released for lunch. The agitation, however, was called off in the evening, after the district administration assured them of taking up the issue on priority.
About 250 persons, including hundreds of women, under the banner of Rourkela Displaced Association (32 Mouza) were in the demonstration. ADM Monisha Banerjee expressed inability to execute the order in the first meeting earlier on the day. later in the evening, another meeting was conducted with representatives of the district administration and displaced persons’ representatives.
“Since, as many as 165 families out of 1,098 have been eliminated during scrutiny, they demanded inclusion of those families as a part of extended families,” said Panposh Sub Collector HS Behera.
However, assurances were given that efforts would be taken to complete the verification of cases after which they called off the agitation,” Behera added.