Amid peace meeting, Vedanta announces compensation

BHAWANIPATNA

: An uneasy calm descended in the area surrounding Vedanta's alumina refinery at Lanjigarh, 65 km from here, a day after two persons died during violent clashes between police and locals demanding jobs at the plant and free education for their children.

On Tuesday, the

Kalahandi district

administration held a peace meeting between local residents and representatives of Vedanta in a bid to diffuse the crisis. "The meeting was held in a peaceful and positive note," Himanshu Lal, DIG (south western range), said.

Police have also registered two cases in connection with the deaths of a protester and a jawan of the Odisha Industrial Security Force (OISF). "Police have started investigation in the two cases," Lal added.

To avoid further escalation of violence, prohibitory orders have been placed in the area for the second consecutive day. SP (Kalahandi) Batula Gangadhar said the situation is under control. "Around 13 platoons of police have been deployed in the area to prevent any untoward incident," Gangadhar said.

At the refinery, work is going on in full swing after a brief lull in the wake of Monday's violence, police and Vedanta sources said.

Vedanta representatives claimed while locals were largely cooperative, some with vested interests trigerred Monday's violence. "Some miscreants with vested interests created the unrest," Ajay Dixit, chief executive officer of Vedanta (

aluminium

& power), said.

Dixit said Vedanta will pay compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the next of kin of each of the deceased within seven days.

"Around 240 families are going to be displaced for the (expansion) project. Our talks with the villagers are already over. But all of a sudden some people attacked the OISF personnel leading to the unfortunate incident," he added. It must be mentioned that Vedanta has got government clearance to expand its capacity to 6 million tonne per annum (mtpa) from the current 2 mtpa. The expansion will lead to displacement of people from the villages of Rengopali, Bandhaguda and Kotadwar. Protestors on Monday were mostly from these villages. Dixit said the rehabilitation and peripheral area development committee will meet after the elections to discuss the various rehabilitation measures.