[Reader-list] Fwd: POSCO report

[Nagraj Adve]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Harsh Dobhal <harshdobhal at gmail.com>
Date: 20 October 2010 17:36
Subject: Fwd: POSCO report
To: Nagraj Adve <nagraj.adve at gmail.com>




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shalini Gera <shalinigera at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 4:28 PM
Subject: POSCO report
To: Harsh Dobhal <harshdobhal at gmail.com>


Contact:
G. Agrawal/S. Gera: +91  9818 19 1395 (India)
Biju Mathew +1 917 232 8437 (USA East Coast)
Anu Mandavilli +1 408 480 5805 (USA West Coast)
mzpsginfo at gmail.com http://miningzone.org

For Immediate Release October 20, 2010

POSCO Project Justification Based On Flawed Data

Orissa Government and POSCO Have Misled the Public on Benefits to the
Country, says New International Report

A team of US-based researchers have released a report today claiming
that the POSCO project in Orissa is fundamentally flawed and
economically unviable, and that the company and the government of
Orissa have deliberately misled the public by putting forth false data
and numbers.  Coming close on the heels of the divided report of the
POSCO Enquiry Committee, where the majority of members held that the
POSCO project is illegal, the new report, Iron and Steal: The
POSCO-India Story, authored by the Mining Zone People’s Solidarity
Group (MZPSG), goes a step further.  It argues that apart from
violations of law and procedure, the POSCO project has been justified
based upon deeply flawed numbers with benefits exaggerated and costs
purposefully minimized. “This sorcery of flawed numbers has been
perpetrated on the country by the Government of Orissa, POSCO and the
National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER),” said Dr.
Girish Agrawal, a California-based lawyer and civil engineer
experienced in large infrastructure projects, who is a member of MZPSG
and one of the authors of the report.

Iron and Steal is a data-rich and comprehensive report, which has
received the endorsement of several renowned intellectuals including
Amit Bhaduri (Prof. Emeritus of Economics, JNU), Prashant Bhushan
(Advocate, Supreme Court) and Manoranjan Mohanty (Prof. of Political
Science, Delhi University). At the press conference today, Shankar
Gopalakrishnan, with the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, said that
the very reason that the POSCO steel plant was mainly located on
forest land was that at the time of the signing of the MoU in 2005,
the government could simply hand over the forest land to any company,
without giving any thought to people dependent on it. It is only after
the Forest Rights Act (FRA) came into effect in 2006 that the rights
of forest dwellers have been recognized and this is what makes FRA
compliance so hotly contested in the region.  Prof Amit Bhaduri
pointed out that in the current neoliberal environment, the political
leadership is only interested in promoting a climate for investors,
even at the cost of all democratic norms and constitutional rights.
Commenting on the report, Prof. Mohanty said that Iron &Steal is “the
most comprehensive, most persuasive, the best researched report on the
POSCO Project.”

While substantiating the various illegalities and procedural
irregularities in granting clearances to the project, Iron & Steel
suggests that the very reason for the violation of democratic
principles and lack of transparency is that the base data on which the
project is justified is itself wrong and therefore could not be
allowed to come out.  Iron &Steel concludes that the POSCO project has
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 primary findings of the
report include:

·         the existence of a thriving agrarian economy that the
Government of Orissa has refused to acknowledge in Coastal
Jagatsinghpur with average annual net yields of over Rs. 40,000 per
decimal of land (100 decimals = 1 acre) per year in sharp contrast to
the paltry Rs. 11,500 per decimal being offered as one time
compensation by the GoO/POSCO,

·         gross exaggeration of employment benefits, EIRR and tax
revenues by the Orissa, POSCO and NCAER,

·         deliberate and systematic procedural violations for
environmental and socio-economic impact assessment by both the
government of Orissa and POSCO,

·         failure to conduct a socio-economic study that would measure
the impact of 22,000 people being displaced and  more than 50,000
people being affected by the project in coastal Jagatsinghpur and
Khandadhar hills.

With the release of Iron and Steal, MZPSG has also announced the
launch of its international information campaign on the POSCO India
project. Thus far, the POSCO project has only been hyped as India’s
largest FDI and much has been written about the scale of the project
in terms of its captive mines in Khandadhar, and integrated plant and
port in coastal Jagatsinghpur. The objective of the report is to focus
on the real data around the POSCO project and increase the awareness
within the international community about problems with the project.

The Mining Zone People’s Solidarity Group is an international research
group focused on India, with core interests in the “new economic
policy” and development model in India. We do not seek or accept any
funding from external sources and all expenses are paid for by the
researchers themselves. We have been following the development of
several large projects in India, and for the last six months, we have
been investigating claims made by the central and state governments
about the benefits to the country due to the proposed POSCO integrated
steel project and captive port in Orissa.For more details, visit:
www.miningzone.org

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