Twelve platoons of armed police forces entered Gobindpur, part of the Posco steel project site near Paradip, early on Sunday morning and evicted people from dozens of betel gardens to acquire 700 acres of government land.

While some people, apparently fearing government backlash, parted with the government land under their “illegal” possession, a few others resisted and clashed with the security personnel.

After a lull of one and half years, the Odisha government has resumed the land acquisition drive for the beleaguered Posco steel project near Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district. But with the project opponents stiffly opposing the move, tension prevailed in the area.

Aided by 12 platoons of police, the officials of state revenue department and Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) on Sunday entered the trouble torn Gobindpur village in the Posco site to acquire a patch of 700 acres of land, crucial for start of work on the project.

Agra: The government on Monday said it will review South Korean steel firm Posco's R 52,000-crore project, which has been stuck for long over land acquisition and other regulatory issues.

The assurance was given by commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma to a visiting South Korean delegation at the ongoing partnership summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry. "We are committed to the smooth offtake of the Posco project and will look into the recent developments to expedite the project in consultation with the state agencies. The first meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Investment is day after tomorrow (January 30)," Sharma added.

Will not dilute gram sabha consent requirements, says MoEF

In a joint strategy for their meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh next week, Environment and Forests Minister Jayanthi Natarajan and Tribal Affairs Minister Kishore Chandra Deo both reportedly plan to oppose any dilution of tribal rights in forest areas. This, despite the fact that their respective secretaries have signed on to a deal with the Prime Minister’s Office last month agreeing to such a dilution.

Odisha-based Geomin Minerals, which has been locked in a legal battle with Korean giant Posco for an iron ore prospecting licence in the Kandadhar mines in Sundergarh district, on Wednesday opposed a Supreme Court move to ask the Centre to make an assessment of all potential contenders for the licence.

The company had first challenged the Odisha government’s recommendation to allot the prospecting mining licence to Posco in the High Court, which cancelled the mine and asked the state to conduct the exercise afresh. Both Geomin and Posco then moved the HC against the decision.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated that it may lob the issue of granting a prospective iron ore licence to South Korean giant Posco back to the central government.

The top court raised this possibility and sought responses on Wednesday from all parties fighting over the grant of the Khandadhar mines in Odisha to Posco. The top court is hearing cross appeals filed by local company Geomin and Korean giant Posco against a high court decision cancelling the prospecting licence awarded to Posco in the area.

Tribal minister says he hasn’t seen the report on this, though his own secretary is a signatory

A panel set up by the Prime Minister’s Office to review the mechanism for forest clearances in industrial projects has suggested replacing the need for approval from the relevant gram sabha with state government “certificates’’. Tribal Affairs Minister Kishore Chandra Deo says he has yet to see the report, which in effect asks for disregarding the Forest Rights Act (FRA), which he has been championing.

Paradip: The anti-Posco agitation in Jagatsinghpur district took a new turn today with children and women joining the stir for the first time in two years as the government prepared to resume land acquisition in the proposed plant site.

Over 2,000 school going children, college students and women joined a sit-in at Balitikira of Gobindpur gram panchayat organised by Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), a CPI-backed body opposing the South Korean steel major since it inked a MoU with the state government in 2005.

Land acquisition drive for Posco steel unit project in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district which was scheduled to commence from today failed to take off.

"The work was to recommence today. But due to unavoidable reasons it could not be taken up. It'll start soon," Paradip additional district magistrate Surajit Das said. The land acquisition work had been suspended in the area since a violence in the area on June 10, 2011.