Ramesh while deciding on the environmental and forest clearances for the Rs 54,000 crore project gave a conditional go ahead to the project. Departing from the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, he had asked the state government to just give him a written assurance that no non-tribals had rights over the land that Orissa wanted to give to the company.
Even before the state government could react, the village level councils of Dhinkia and Govindpur pointed out to Ramesh that they had passed resolutions against takeover of their lands and had laid community and individual claims to the disputed lands.
The Orissa government has now restated its old position that the land had not even been identified as forest land for 75 years to be so claimed by the people dwelling there. But survey maps with TOI show that even in the 1920s the land had been identified as forest land by the government. Read the full report here.
Source: Times News Network, New Delhi.
