Report by Amarnath Parida; Paradip: Hundreds of displaced families under the banner of Oil Refinery 'Land Loser Cooperative Society on Wednesday, staged a demonstration at the site of the oil refinery project of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) at Paradip.

Union leaders fumed against IOCL authorities including civil administration have been allegedly neglecting the displaced families those sacrificed about 3330 acres of private lands for the project inception in the year 1998. Earlier, project authority and state government had assured the affected people to be reasonably compensated and displaced would be taken special care with regard to getting housing facility and employment once the project started. Ironically nobody care to obey the earlier promises had given to them,

President of this society cum educationist Mr. Satayananda Panda expressed his displeasure against IOCL authority allegedly neglecting victim land losers grievance and maintaining partiality providing jobs to them so it is obvious the enraged victim people have no option to go against IOCL

Sources said, IOCL has not implemented the Rehabilitation and Resettlement policy (R&R) policy-2006 of the Orissa government as it had started work in 2000 in Paradip.

Land losers and displaced families argued that IOCL should implement the R&R policy of the state government.

Even, the Rehabilitation and Peripheral Advisory Committee (RPDAC) meet on the project had decided to rehabilitate land losers and provide compensation to them as per this policy.

Land losers have demanded that the decisions taken at the last meeting of RPDAC on 29th September ‘2010  need to be implemented failing which the land losers would paralyze the IOCL machinery. They also demanded to provide job and contact work to unemployed youths who have been lost their land. They also demanded that the company needs to build a rehabilitation colony for all the 143 displaced families with health and sanitation facilities as per the R&R policy.

IOCL had acquired land at throwaway prices of Rs 80,000 per acre at a time when other companies like Essar had paid Rs 19.10 lakh per acre to the land losers. IOC has acquired 3,300 hectares of private land for its oil refinery and had paid Rs 49 crore as compensation to the affected families in 17 villages under the Kujang tehsil in Jagatsinghpur district.

The affected families expressed that the contract agency of IOCL is dredging the Jatadhari river mouth, violating the norms and conditions of the Union ministry of water resources and provisions of Central Regulation Zone (CRZ), causing soil erosion and endangering many coastal villages.

They pointed out that the dredging agency has created a lake of saline water near the Jatadhari river mouth due to which the paddy crops in nearby villages are getting affected.