Work in Tata’s Kalinganagar project to begin next month

After facing strong resistance over displacement of farmers who had given up their land, the beleaguered Tata Steel project in Kalinganagar in Orissa’s Jajpur district is to start production in August, an official said Thursday.
“I expect that work at the project would commence sometime in the month of August once the displacement problem is over,” H.M. Nerurkar, executive director (India and South East Asia) of TATA, told reporters.

Speaking on the sidelines of 13th International Conference on Clean, Green and Sustainable Technologies in Iron and Steel Making, the top executive of Tata however said that work would start in the project with “full cooperation of local people”.

The Rs.21,000 crore project has been facing stiff resistance from local people since inception over the issue of displacement and rehabilitation. The project ran into rough weather after 14 people were killed in police firing in 2006.

Taking a proactive approach, he said that, “there is no point fighting, rather people should realize that it is for their own good”.

According to a Tata official, the project would displace 1,195 families of which, 80-85 percent have been rehabilitated already, and the work would begin soon.