Orissa Today group urges TATA STEEL to return the Gopalpur land to IDCO
A Global Oriya Intellectual Network has written an Open letter to TATA STEEL management to return the acquired land of 3400 acres which are still lying unused by them.
Here is the text of the letter.
Dear Mr. Ratan Tata and Mr. Muthuraman,
After reading the following
Meanwhile, Tata Motors Managing Director Ravi Kant said in an interview with Bengali news channel Kolkata TV that the company was "committed to the development" of Singur and "well-being of the people on whose land the factory will come up".
The commitment remain the same only Gopalpur has been replaced with Singur
I couldn't resist myself to let the people of West Bengal know , how liars the TATAs are. Around 12 years back you have changed lives of people of 3 or 4 villages , Badapur , the poorest village, followed by Patrapur and Sindhigan.
You have forced them to go to another place, forced to change their profession. Some survived and some ran away to Surat (Gujrat) to earn their bread and butter.
We also came to know that you kept appeasing some bureaucrats of Orissa with large size High Definition color TVs to keep their mouth shut. This was reported in a news paper in Orissa a year back.
We have written several letters to Chief minister of Orissa, who feel proud to share stage with Mr. Ratan Tata. he will never ask you to return the land to IDCO to keep it as a reserve for future project like Mittals/Russian etc. Obviously, he will never slap you with any show cause notice.Our request has gone to dustbin.
For several years you have hired a office space at Berhampur , near Gajapati Nagar, just to fool people that TATA STEEL project is still active.
The day you have decided not to go for steel plant, you should have returned the land to IDCO, so that IDCO would have given that to some other party and the people of Berhampur would have seen some Industrial development.
After writing several times in this forum also the main opposition congress never raised this as an assembly question.We don't have a bold leader like Mamata Banrjee.
We have sufficient reason to believe that your contribution to the election funds of political parties of Orissa is the reason of keeping their mouth shot.
Mr. Ratan Tata is a highly respected figure in India and abroad. It gives me no pleasure to write an open letter to him. But it is necessary because I have spend my 15 years of life very close to that area and seen how people's land taken for nothing. TATA steel breached People's aspirations and no more a credible brand name among us.
We have full sympathy with the villager of Singur as we share the same concern and full support for Mamta Banarjee. Long live Mamta Banarjee, who is trying to save a 6 crop land.
I also urge the Kolkata Press to bring this events to public and let public judge the false promises of TATAs, please have a look at the following piece of news from Business standard as well. 3+ years passed no action.
Finally, on behalf of Orissa Today Group, I urge Mr. Ratan Tata to return the land acquired at Gopalpur to IDCO so that the same can be used by Mittals and so many acres of land will be saved for further acquisition.
Reference:
Tata Steel, Orissa form SPV for Gopalpur SEZ
Business Standard — July 29, 2003
Kolkata: Tata Steel and the Orissa government will set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the proposed Gopalpur special economic zone (SEZ).
B Muthuraman, managing director, said the SPV will be set up for promoting the SEZ. Tata Steel is, however, yet to decide upon the extent of its holding in the SPV. The modalities are expected to be finalised shortly.
The advantage of a SEZ is that the Gopalpur port can handle deep draft vessels. Moreover, the steel ministry had also approached the railway minister for setting up a railway transport corporation in Gopalpur.
The Orissa government is also looking at converting the fair-weather port into an all-weather one. The SEZ will effectively utilise the 4,000 acre acquired in Gopalpur by Tata Steel for its proposed 10 million tonne steel plant, planned in the 1990s. Work on the project was never initiated.
The first phase of the mammoth project was estimated at Rs 7,000 crore. The land was acquired by displacing one village completely and four others partially. Three factors prevented Tata Steel from going ahead with its plan — no progress on the port, poor linkage of iron ore and non-availability of water.
However, to meet existing demand Tata Steel decided to augment capacity by adding one million tonne at its Jamshedpur plant. Commenting on the steel business, Muthuraman said prices were expected to be stable in the coming months. Tata Steel posted a 315.93 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 267.07 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, 2003.
Net sales for the quarter grew 27.8 per cent to Rs 2,257.10 crore compared with Rs 1,764.93 crore. Analysts tracking the company said the steel sector is on an upswing and the trend is likely to continue, at least as long as China remained a net importer of steel.
While Tata Steel had already become economic value-added positive, the company is gearing up to manage the inevitable volatility of the cyclical steel industry.
Contact Details:Orissa Today
Post Date:12/15/2006 10:49:49 PM Validity:365 Days