(Roving Reporter)
Naveen Patnaik who is averse to mother tongue of the State is ruining Orissa by companyalising its Government, alleged eminent environmentalist Medha Patekar after a visit to the villages earmarked to be pushed into the POSCO domain.
The state seems like running under foreign hands having no inclination to safeguard the bare minimum interest of the people.
It is sad that the self-employed cultivators of Kujang Tahsil are going to be pauperized by their own government because their ancestral source of livelihood as well as their environment of living is going to be handed over to the foreign company POSCO, she rued.
The inhabitants of Kujang Tahsil have been devastated so many times by natural calamities. But because their ancestral lands were with them, they have always overcome the debacle and built up their homes afresh. Naveen Patnaik is displacing these brave people from their places as a result of which they shall be reduced to paupers and proletariats. They shall be debarred from their status as independent farmers and be compelled to serve as worker under a foreign company, if that company graciously agrees to grant them the status of its servants. How shall it benefit the State? She asked.
It is alarming, she said, that the people of the area where POSCO shall rule have not been made aware of the impact of the Industry on their lives, properties and environment. The State Government has been executing its conspiracy clandestinely.
If Naveen Patnaik is interested in Orissas financial wellbeing, she asked, how is it that the POSCO is being helped to get the ores at only 20 percent of the cost presently prevalent in the market?
A responsible and pro-people government would never have wanted to squander away the mineral stock of the State. In stead of handing over the natural wealth to foreign and inland monopolies, it should have engineered utilization thereof by encouraging local inhabitants to develop small scale industries for fetching profit for the State, she emphasized.
Instead of nationalizing the private companies that exploit people, people like Naveen Patnaik have been handing over the people to private companies. Can any patriot remain a silent spectator to this? She asked.
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