Friday, October 22,
Questioning the rationale for Posco’s $12-billion steel plant in Orissa, an international research organisation has alleged that the project was cleared on the basis of deeply flawed numbers with benefits exaggerated and costs purposefully minimised.
“This sorcery of flawed numbers has been perpetrated on the country by the Orissa Government, Posco and the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER),” alleged Mr Girish Agrawal, an official of the Mining Zone Peoples’ Solidarity Group (MZPSG) at a press conference.
The report ‘Iron and steel: The Posco India Story’ said the project been allowed to proceed without a basic socio-economic study, a complete blockade on discussion of the current local economy, wild exaggerations of benefits and a deliberate overlooking of infrastructural and ecological costs. The project would displace 22,000 people and more than 50,000 people will be affected.
The report comes two days after majority of the members of the Government-appointed panel sought cancellation of environment and forest clearance to the Posco project.
According to the report, Posco, Orissa Government and NCAER have claimed that the project would generate 8.72 lakh jobs, ‘which was a plain lie’.
“The maximum direct jobs that the project will generate in the next 5-10 years is about 7,000, less than one per cent of the current Orissa unemployment rate,” Mr Agrawal said.
Further, the report said the tax revenue claims advanced by the Orissa Government-based NCAER data are clearly fraudulent and these had been blindly accepted.
Source: The Business Line
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