In an another show of strength the local Trinamool leaders have stopped work at Essar Oil’s Rs 3,000-crore green fuel project allegedly for not giving donation to the party at Jathgoria in Burdwan district.

The incident happened on Monday evening when 10 employees of Essar Oil were held hostage by villagers for nearly two hours over a land compensation dispute.  The situation was such that the local police refused to send help to the besieged officials. According to the villagers Essar took 12 bighas of land for the project but has not paid a single penny for the land.

Essar officials, however, refuted the charges.

“We had taken 12 bighas of land for the constructing Shibpur approach road which connects the project area with NH2. All the villagers have been paid for the land we took for the project,” they said. “As this land was taken for the construction of the road we are having discussion with the local administration about compensation,” Essar energy officer Manabendra Guha Roy, who was at Writers Building to discuss the issue, told reporters.

Guha Roy, who had a meeting with Industry Minister Parth Chatterjee, Chief Secretary Sanjoy Mitra and Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee on Tuesday said, “we are happy with the outcome of the meeting”. Local CPM leaders, however, allege that local Trinamool leaders led the agitation because Essar denied to pay any kind of donation to the party.

The firm has six coal bed methane (CBM) wells in Jathgoria, some 15km from Durgapur, and is scouting for land to step up production by 400 per cent to two lakh standard cubic metre — given the projected demand from the upcoming Matix fertiliser plant at Panagarh and the transport sector that needs CNG. It also caters to Graphite India and Philips Carbon in the Durgapur industrial belt.