BHUBANESWAR: The Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) on Tuesday sought the intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to shift the site of the proposed Posco project to a barren land near the present location in Jagatsinghpur district.OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik, who met the Prime Minister in Delhi, informed him that vast barren land, nearly 7,000 acre, is available only 6 km from the present site. He told this paper that because of the fault of the State Government, the project has been delayed by over five years. “I told the Prime Minister that it is better late than never,” he said.Patnaik said that the BJD Government had not applied its mind before selecting the site for the country’s biggest foreign direct investment (FDI) and hence, facing opposition from the local people.The previous Congress government in the State had denied permission to IOCL and a fertiliser company to set up their projects in the same area, he said. The OPCC president also informed the Prime Minister that the district administration had not been able to enter the core area of the proposed plant site due to stiff opposition from children, women and elderly people. Patnaik invited the Prime Minister to visit Orissa as he was not able to go to Koraput and other regions during his last trip due to rains. The OPCC president said Singh assured him that he would come to Orissa after the Parliament session.Pointing at large-scale irregularities in the implementation of Central schemes in Orissa, Patnaik demanded extension of the CBI probe into NREGS works to all districts and not limit it to just six districts. Stating that Maoist activities have spread to all the 30 districts in Orissa, he sought a special package from the Centre.Criticising the Kolkata Port Trust’s unilateral expansion of its boundary, which will affect upcoming ports on the Orissa coast, Patnaik requested the Prime Minister to take steps to settle the dispute at the earliest. He also drew Singh’s attention to the slow progress in the work of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Central University in the State.
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