KalingaTimes Correspondent
Bhubaneswar: As thousands of people across Orissa were going on the annual Bol Bom Yatra to worship Lord Shiva in different temples, a group of youths from Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa on Sunday took out a similar journey to the Lingaraj temple opposing the proposed 12 million tonne steel plant of POSCO-India in the State.

Calling their protest journey as Sanskruti Suraksha Bol Bom Yatra, the youths collected water from Gadagadia Ghat on Mahanadi river at Cuttack and walked barefoot towards Bhubaneswar.

They would offer water at Lingaraj temple on Monday morning and take a vow to continue their opposition to the POSCO steel project.

However, unlike the Bol Bom devotees who wear traditional religious clothes, the anti-POSCO activists wore T-shirts with slogans such `No to POSCO' and `POSCO Hatao, Desh Bachao' (Oust POSCO, Save the country), the activists said the Korean company should leave the country.

The activists who hailed from the three gram panchayats of Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakujang where people were facing displacement due to the proposed steel plant said they would continue their opposition the steel project in the days to come.

The yatra was organised under the banner of Udyam Yuva Sangathan, a youth organisation.

The project, the activists said, would not only displace thousands of people and affect their livelihoods, it would also create severe water crisis in their district by using the water from Mahanadi.

The activists further said the POSCO steel project would also affect the livelihoods of thousands of tribals in Keonjhar district as the Korean company had plans to extract iron ore from Khandadhar hills.