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BJD alleges irregularities, kickbacks in Dhamra port expansion project

The Biju Janata Dal in Orissa will soon draw Prime Minister A B Vajpayee's attention to large-scale irregularities and the possibility of kickbacks being received in granting formal rights to the Singapore-based International Sea Ports Limited by the J B Patnaik government for the modernisation and expansion of Dhamra port in Bhadrak district.

Three BJD MLAs have alleged that the Congress government had hurriedly finalised the deal with the ISP without considering the crucial human factor.

They further said the state government had not shown any transparency in inviting tenders, design planning and considering the project's viability.

In a joint letter issued to the press in Bhubaneswar, they alleged that a kickback of Rs 3 billion had been paid in the deal, and demanded an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the granting of formal rights to the international company without floating a global tender. The signatories to the letter were Bijayashree Routray, Debi Prasad Mishra and Prabhat Tripathy.

Routray told newsmen yesterday that the government had completely overlooked the interests of about 250,000 fishermen whose livelihood depended on the existing fishing jetty at the Dhamra port while granting permission to the expansion of the port. He alleged that there would be large-scale displacement if the project was carried out in the proposed area.

Routray said all the BJD MLAs in the state and members of Parliament have decided to take up the matter with the Centre as they feel that the ruling Congress had vested interests in handing over the project to a particular company. He said the decision to involve ISP was taken during the chief minister's recent visit to South-East Asia for attracting foreign investments to the state.

The BJD MLA further alleged that the state government had offered over 3,000 acres of land to the ISP for establishing an economic corridor and another five thousand acres for the development and expansion of the Dhamra port at a price much cheaper than the prevailing rate. This apart, the government had also promised to hand over another 5,000 acres to the international company for setting up an industrial park.

He said although the land value in the area would be more than Rs 300,000 per acre, the state government had handed over the land at the rate of Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000 per acre. The government, Routray claimed, would incur heavy losses on account of providing vast land to the company at such a throwaway price.

Routray claimed that about 20,000 people in three panchayats of Dhamra block would be displaced if development of the port was taken up at the proposed site. He said there were other alternative sites where the human displacement would be almost negligible but the government ignored all these sites and instead was very keen to hand over the area where infrastructure was already existing.

Routray said the memorandum of understanding signed by the state government with ISP clearly stipulated that the company would run the port on lease basis after completion of the development and expansion work. The ISP, he further said, will now manage Dhamra port for the next five years till the completion of the work, and there have been no guidelines as to whether the company would pay anything to the state government during this period.

He said as per the agreement, the ISP would invest about Rs 12 billion in the first phase of the development of the port but in reality the company would spend only about Rs 9 billion as other basic infrastructure available at the site would be fully utilised by the company.

The BJD MLA said the chief minister had been misleading the people by giving false information about Dhamra port. Earlier he maintained that it was a green field project but subsequently termed it as development of the existing Dhamra port in the wake of public criticism.

Rourtay warned that if the government insisted on going ahead with the project at the fishing jetty site, there would be a public agitation which might seal the fate of the project like the Balco plant at Gandhamardhan and TISCO's proposed steel plant at Gopalpur. The BJD MLA, however, said he was not opposed to the development of the port per se as it would help the state and the area economically but the port should be located at an alternative site not far off from the existing jetty.

UNI

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