As part of its campaign to hold financiers accountable, BankTrack supported the Anti-Jindal & Anti-POSCO Movement (JPPSS) in lodging human-rights complaints with ANZ, Mizuho, MUFG and SMBC over their loans to JSW Steel’s proposed Utkal complex in Odisha.

...On 2 May, JPPSS filed grievances through ANZ’s in-house mechanism and Japan’s JaCER channel, challenging four banks for underwriting roughly USD 527 million in loans to JSW Steel between 2019 and 2024. BankTrack’s involvement was integral: it first approached these financial actors directly, then helped craft and submit the formal complaints.

The filings allege that JSW’s Dhinkia project—originally POSCO’s stalled project—has enabled forced transfers of over 2,600 acres of predominantly forest land without free, prior and informed consent; fuelled police crackdowns and criminalisation of peaceful protestors, human rights defenders; and risks deepening pollution in an area already rated “severely polluted” by India’s Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI). Campaigners demand that the banks suspend all new credit until an independent investigation and remedy process is completed.

..Resistance continues to build: earlier this year, villagers marked the third anniversary of a 2022 police raid with a “Black Day,” and BankTrack has now urged 22 more creditor banks to cut ties. For JSW Steel—and its bankers—the cost of community pushback keeps rising.