By Amulya Kumar Pati
Jajpur (Orissa), June 12: The district administration on Thursday expedited the process for issue of appointment letters to next of kin of 11 victims of Kalinga Nagar police firing as a part of compensation package.

The families of the firing victims will be greeted with government jobs in the district soon, official sources said.

While two of the next of kin of police firing victims will be appointed as Junior Clerk in Revenue department, the rest nine would be provided with Class-IV jobs in District Social Welfare Department.

As many as 14 tribals, including a high school student, were killed on January 2, 2006, while protesting against construction of a boundary wall for the six million tonne proposed steel plant of Tata Steel at Kalinga Nagar.

The government had announced to provide employment to the next of kin of each of the police firing victims as part of the compensation package according to their qualification and government suitability.

According to Jajpur district collector Dhiren Kumar Das, two next kin of the 14 firing victims so far were provided with the government job, and 11 others would be given employment in government sector in a day or two.

"Two of the 11 kin of the police firing victims will be absorbed as Junior Clerk in Jajpur Collectorate as they are matriculate and rest nine as class four jobs in District Social Welfare Department," Das said.

Reacting to the development, Visthapan Virodhi Janmanch, the tribal forum leading the anti-industrialisation movement since the day of police firing, said that nothing would impact its agitation after providing the firing victim families with government jobs.

"Providing government jobs to the police firing victim families will have no impact on our ongoing agitation. We have been opposing Tata Steel project and will continue until our demands are fulfilled," Janmanch secretary Rabindra Jarika said.

Two kin of Kalinga Nagar police-firing victims were provided with government job last year. The next to the kin of Kissan Buduli was the lone firing victim family to be given employment as compensation.