November 1 - 15, 2006

On October 17, over a thousand people participated in a meeting organised by the Prakrutik Sampada Suraksha Parishad (PSSP) at Baghrijhola, the site of the controversial plant of the Utkal Alumina International Limited (UAIL). They resolved, in this meeting notonly to oppose the illegal expansion plans of UAIL, but also to fight for the rescinding of the entire UAIL project.

The meeting was called to protest the fraudulent "public hearing" organised by the Orissa State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) at Tikri on the same day. As part of “good governance” advocated by the World Bank and such other imperialist agencies, it has become a new found fashion of the Indian state to organize “public hearings” in such a way as to provide legitimacy for the imperialist agenda. As a spokesperson of the PSSP pointed out, “Tikri, the site chosen for this hearing, was away from the plant site and marked by the deployment of heavy security forces, at whose hands the local people have suffered severe repression, including arbitrary arrests, in the past. Holding a so-called public hearing in such an environment of intimidation and hostility speaks volumes about how much “public opinion” the OSPCB really intended to entertain.”

The UAIL is a 100% export oriented project. It is a joint venture of Hindalco (Aditya Birla group) and Alcan (the Canadian aluminum giant). In the face of massive opposition from people, whose lands are being forcibly taken over; whose soil is being turned uncultivatable due to bauxite mining, the plans for the 3 million tonne bauxite export plant have been delayed considerably, by nearly a dozen years. On the other hand, the Orissa government is busy legitimising the expansion plans of UAIL, through state repression accompanied by demagogy and deceit.

The expansion plans relate to land in the 5th Schedule areas of Baphlimali and Doragurha in Rayagada district, Orissa. The people declared the public hearing was a sham because it sought to address the "expansion" of a project that is illegal at the very outset on the following grounds:

• The project is coming up on lands protected as 5th Schedule areas and thus violates the constitutional protection to tribal land
• Land acquisition from local people has proceeded through force and intimidation
• Numerous Grama Sabha resolutions have rejected the project
• Original environmental clearance obtained in 1995 has lapsed, and fresh clearance is not applied for
• Leave alone "expansion", even the ongoing work onsite is illegal because projects have neither up-to-date environmental clearance nor forest clearance.

The peoples' protest is based on the fact that the proposed Bauxite mining and Alumina refinery at Kashipur destroys their fertile agricultural land, forests, mountains and perennial water-streams, the very basis of their livelihoods and livelihood of generations to come. It is feared that with Bauxite mining, the water holding capacity of the mountains will be drastically reduced. Nearly 20,000 people will be affected in 82 villages. The proposed project has employment potential of only 1000 and that too for only 20 years, by which time the bauxite in the area will be exhausted.

The state government has publicly issued instructions to its officials to push the construction of the UAIL project by hook or by crook. It has resorted to manufacturing “peoples' consent” for support of the UAIL Plant through use of force, by bribing a few persons and declaring benefits for those who would be displaced. The farcical drama enacted by the government in the name of "public hearing" is part of this exercise of manufacturing consent.

PV condemns the Orissa government for its fascist attack on the livelihood and rights of the project affected people and hails the just struggle of the people.