The socio-economic and forest survey work in the proposed site of the Rs 52,000 crore Posco steel plant project near here was today carried out amid heavy security after yesterday's police lathicharge on anti-Posco demonstrators .

Survey work for the mega project gained pace and progressed smoothly in Nuagaon gram panchayat area of Jagatsinghpur district, additional district magistrate Saroj Kanta Choudhury said.

Over 250 armed police personnel stood by as six teams from the district administration accelerated the process of socio-economic and forest survey, he said adding that the survey work would also continue tomorrow.

While Choudhury claimed that the villagers extended necessary cooperation for the survey, a panchayat functionary said there was protest by several local residents who wanted the government to hold talks with them before undertaking any activities relating to the steel project.

Police said no untoward incident was reported from any place in the proposed plant site and the survey was conducted peacefully though some people tried to voice their opposition.

Police had resorted to lathicharge yesterday in order to disperse anti-project agitators who had gathered in the proposed site in a bid to prevent the survey team from entering into Nuagaon panchayat for the exercise, sources said.

The survey work for the 12 mtpa steel plant, which had begun on May 25, had been stopped since May 29 following stiff opposition by local residents, resumed yesterday in order to complete the process at the earliest, a senior district official said.

Police said two of the three persons who had been arrested yesterday while trying to obstruct survey work in Nuagaon were forwarded to court while one man was released.

Some people had been injured during police operation on May 15 to disperse agitators who had been staging a sit-in since January 26, this year at Balitutha, the entry point to the proposed project site of the South Korean steel major, sources said.

The survey work was taken up after chief minister Naveen Patnaik held talks with local MLAs and MP and it was decided to exclude Dhinkia, considered as the epi-centre of anti-Posco agitation, from the project site.

Socio-economic and forest survey was completed in Gada Kujanga panchayat area during the first phase of work from May 25, Choudhury said.

Though Posco-India had inked MoU with Orissa government way back in June, 2005, not an inch of land has so far been acquired for the mega project in view of stiff protest from locals.