New Delhi - Hundreds of students joined a march in India's eastern state of Orissa to protest a proposed plant by South Korean steelmaker Posco, news reports said Monday.

The students carried banners and posters at Dhinkia in the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur, about 100 kilometres south of Orissa's capital, Bhubaneswar, the IANS news agency reported, citing police.

Posco, or the Pohang Iron and Steel Co, signed a deal with the Orissa government in June 2005 to build a steel plant in Jagatsinghpur by 2016. The project has been delayed by months of protests by thousands of villagers claiming it would deprive them of their homes and livelihoods.

The steelmaker and government said the plant would affect 500 families and create thousands of jobs in the plant and ancillary industries.

There have been similar protests by farmers in several parts of India as industrial development forces them to give up their farmland. About 70 per cent of Indians still depend on agriculture for a living.

This month, Indian automaker Tata Motors Ltd abandoned a project to build the Nano, which it said would be the world's cheapest car, in the eastern state of West Bengal after prolonged protests by farmers who claimed the government forced them to sell their land for the plant. (dpa)