Confident of getting final clearance for the proposed Posco project, Orissa government said it would submit its assurance to the Ministry of Environment and Forest on the proper implementation of the Forest Rights Act-2006 in next three days.
Chief Secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik told reporters that the government was ready with the reply and will submit its assurance report with the MoEF within three days.
Stating that the state government could not meet the earlier deadline of submitting assurance report with the MoEF due to fresh claims made by villagers, Patnaik said the Jagatsinghpur administration had already given its report which was sent to the department of scheduled tribe and scheduled caste for examination.
While giving conditional clearance to the Rs 52,000- crore project on January 31, the Centre had sought written assurance from Orissa government on the implemenation of the Forest Resource Assessment (FRA) before signing on the proposal of diversion of forest land for the South Korean steel major's project.
A forest and environment department official said of the 4004 acre of land demarcated for Posco project, about 2900 acre fell under the category of forest land. Those forest land must be converted into non-forest land before they are handed to the company for setting up the mega steel plant.