Nearly 2000 women, children and men have formed a human barricade to prevent the entry of police and administration in the proposed plant area, in what they say is a last ditch attempt to protect their land.
Some of them were even lying on the hot sand for hours, desperate to stop the police from entering their village.
"Our parents have been agitating for last six years. We are now ready to die before they do. Naveen Patanik govt wants to snatch away our betel vines and our parents’ livelihood," said one of them.
For the last six years people in Dhinkia Panchayat have been demanding relocation of the project. They say it will deprive them of their major source of income from the betel vines spread across nearly 3000 acres of forest land. Last month, the Jairam Ramesh-led Environment Ministry gave the go-ahead to the Korean steel giant to build the steel plant in the state.
"The children will die anyway. When we are uprooted and starved how will they survive? All of us would prefer getting killed," a lady protesting there said.
The district administration, which wanted to force its way into Govindpur with the help of more than 200 policemen, found the human barricade a little too hot to handle. But they insist the locals have no legal or ethical rights to prevent their entry. Currently, seven platoons of policemen are camping in the area.
"Govt officials who are duty bound to acquire forest land here are being prevented. This is unlawful and immoral and so we will do whatever is lawful," says Devdutt Singh, SP, Jagatsinghput.
Despite the heat, humid conditions and several threats by the police to use force, the children and women refuse to budge.
It’s a do or die battle for the people in Govindpur and Dhinkia. They say this is the last ditch effort to protect their land from being grabbed by corporate interests.