In two days' time in a corner of eastern India, work on a US$12 billion steel plant that would have been the country's largest foreign direct investment should have started.
It won't.
South Korean steel giant Posco was set to start work on a plant on about 1,620 hectares of land in the eastern state of Orissa. The company signed a memorandum of understanding in June 2005 with the Orissa government to build the plant, a port and mines to produce iron, chromium and manganese. The state wants the project to go ahead and was waiting for Posco to get permission to lease the forest land needed for the factory and port, and get a prospecting licence for the mines.
Almost as soon as the ink on the memo dried, however, farmers and fishermen living near the factory and port sites - and tribal people near the inland mine site - began a campaign to stop the project. They claimed they did not want to lose their livelihoods, or be forced to move.
As the protests snowballed, Posco launched a public relations campaign to convince opponents that the steel plant would help them through better education facilities, health care and jobs, and that they would be compensated and provided with alternative livelihoods.
But continued opposition - coupled with lengthy delays in getting court permission to use forest land and a prospecting licence from India's federal government - have meant the project, already delayed by two years, is on hold. The Supreme Court was due to make a key ruling yesterday.
