Chinese workers at Jharkhand steel plant run into local fury

A A

Arindam Sinha: Jamshedpur, May 14 2009, 23:43 IST

Tags: Chinese Workers At Steel Plant

The police rushed forces to a steel plant site near Bokaro on Tuesday after violent clashes between Chinese and local workers. The Bokaro administration has posted two platoons of policemen and a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) to ensure things are under control at the Electrosteel Casting Ltd (ECL) plant at Sialjori, 35 km from Bokaro, where around 630 Chinese workers are working alongside 1,200 local workers to set up ECL’s 3 million tonne per annum plant.

In March, 600-odd workers of a Chinese firm, MS Ltd, began arriving in groups to start work on ECL’s steel plant. Meanwhile, work stopped at the plant site on Wednesday after four people including its Chinese plant supervisor Su Su Chiang were injured in the clash.

The Chinese firm bagged the turnkey contract after participating in a global tender floated by ECL and is to complete the job in 18 months. MS Ltd commenced work on the project a-month-and-half ago. Sources also said the villagers have been unhappy with the presence of the Chinese workforce and wanted them to go back.

“The situation is normal; we have deployed two platoons, that is, around 50 police personnel at the site and have posted a communications inspector as well as a DSP to monitor the situation,” said Laxman P Singh, the Bokaro superintendent of police, speaking to FE on Wednesday.

Both ECL and the villagers filed FIRs against each other on Wednesday. While the villagers have alleged that they were dragged from their homes and

... contd.

Ads by Google

Single Page Format

1 | 2 | Next