Kalinganagar’s grim anniversary

Once known for controversial land acquisition, the Kalinganagar industrial unit in Odisha now accounts for as much as 20% of approved new investments in the state. But for many locals, unease persists

- RAMANI RANJAN MOHAPATRA

Narayan Gagarai was barely 10 years old when his father and 12 other tribal people were Killed in police firing on January 2, 2006, while protesting the construction of a boundary wall for a Tata Steel plant in Kalinganagar in Odisha’s Jajpur district. Twenty years down the line, his family lives in a rehabilitation colony about 10 km away and his brother works at Tata Steel.

Biswanath (name changed), also a Tata Steel employee, lives in the same colony. He points to a scar on his chest from the 2006 incident. For many like him, memories of the firing remain an unhealed wound. Things could be better, with jobs outsourced and civic issues persisting, but life has moved on.

As has the Kalinganagar industrial unit, which today accounts for more than 20 per cent of the 4.34 trillion worth of investment proposals approved by the Mohan Charan Majhi government over the past one-and-a-half years, much of it related to vast deposits of minerals found in Odisha.

The state is home to 98 per cent of India’s chromite (primarily found in Jajpur’s Sukinda valley), 55 per cent of bauxite, and 33 per cent of iron ore deposits — the chromite and iron ore in particular are crucial for steelmaking. Proximity to the Brahmani river, Dhamra and Paradip ports, and easy road and rail links to Kolkata and Chennai make Kalinganagar, about 120 km from the state capital, a major investment destination.