Rs. 1-lakh car Nano of Tata Motors will provide a joyous ride to common man.
But people of Orissa are literally taken for a ride. Exploiting Orissas iron ore and chrome ore for a century Tata Steel has given little in return. Apart from a couple of plants here and there with few social projects the House of Tata has ignored Orissa. But the group is lavishing West Bengal with a number of major industrial and huge social investments. Ratan Tata has listed a slew of investments his group would make in West Bengal on 11 January. Tata Steel is investing in coke and power plants in Haldia. TCS will be setting up a large facility in Calcutta, where as in Orissa it has a small development centre. The countrys largest cancer hospital with World class research and development facilities would also be built in Calcutta, announced the Steel Czar. In Orissa it has set up small hospitals in Joda and a few tiny health facilities in the mines and nearby plants. It acquired 4000 acres of land in 1996 at Gopalpur to set up a major steel project. But it ditched the state and set up the cold rolling mill at Jamshedpur. Compelled to announce a Greenfield steel project at Kalinga Nagar due to threat of cancellation of iron ore lease, the project is yet to make any progress. Orissa has given every thing to Tatas and leaders of the state have gone out of the way to shower favors to the Steel Major. Tata receives hundreds of crores of rupees per annum by exporting /exploiting chorme ore and iron ore. Once the mineral is exhausted that area is left like abandoned filed full of gaping holes. Mining areas of Gorumahisani and Badampahar bears the burnt of Tata is an eye opener. With all the iron ore deposits exhausted the fields of both the areas are abandoned without any trace of development leaving huge craters as their legacy. Now craters accumulate water, resulted in the breeding grounds for malaria, which has become scourge for the poor tribals. Tatas have never looked back to barren tracts of Gorumahisani and Badampahar and now it is one of the most deprived zones of the state. Similar will be fate of entire mineral bearing areas of Orissa, when after 20 years all its chrome and iron ore will be exhausted , predict experts of the industry. Earlier Orissa paid for the development of Jamshedpur and now experts say the state will continue to pay for development of Calcutta. http://www.tathya.in/story.asp?sno=1547 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
