The decision of the Centre to privatise commercial extraction of coal may not be beneficial for Odisha having 25 per cent of the coal reserve of the country.
There has been persistent suffering of people in coal reserve areas due to mining for last few decades with very little enforcement of environmental legislations and entitlements for the affected people and areas as reparation against the loss. The coal royalty periodic revision and its sharing depend on the Centre as it comes under the Central Act. The Centre must respect the spirit of cooperative federalism over resource ownership and its management as well as benefit sharing with States.
During Covid-19, the recent move of the Central Government with amendment of Coal Mines Special Provision Act 2015 through ordinance, without any discussion at appropriate forums has allowed private sector to go for commercial extraction and the Government has been steadfastly going to ensure infrastructure out of public money to facilitate the private companies in extraction process for profit. Privatisation of commercial extraction will allow the miner to trade the coal and coal based products in open market. There was virtual auction for 41 coal blocks in five States where eight are in Talcher and Chendipada of Angul district and one in IB Valley of Jharasuguda.
The formal process of consultation with locals has not been followed as well as the various social, economic and environmental assessments have also not been done. It is virtually the Central Government which has taken it for granted that there is no need of consent of the affected people. The State of Jharkhand having little more coal reserve than Odisha has gone to the Supreme Court against the decision of the Centre raising concern over environment and STs. Both Odisha and Jharkhand have about 170 billion tonne coal deposits which is about 50 per cent of the total reserve of the country. They also have large presence of ST population and forest wealth.
With increase in extraction of coal, the coal reserve areas are going to get the most burden in terms of displacement and environmental issues as well as many ancillary problems for coal mining and coal based industries. Already the open caste coal mining has caused huge displacement in the coal reserve areas.
Almost all major industries have been depending on coal to run their captive power plants. Coking coal has good demand for steel industries and mostly non coking coal is mainly used for thermal power plants (TPP), which has a higher ash content. It is also used in industries such as cement, fertilizer, glass, ceramic, paper, chemical and brick manufacturing.
It is being reported by many including Government officials ,environmental activists and others that the coal extraction industry and TPP together have caused huge losses to locals and in coming days will bring more disasters in Angul ,Jharsuguda and Sundrgada. It will further change the local political –economy and environment with destruction of forest, land, water and air pollution as a huge area of land will be taken for mining along with coal wash and fly ash management purpose. Past experience shows fly ash management has brought disaster in Angul and affected many nearby villages and agriculture field. The NTPC along with private companies has a plan to set up more TPP for commercial purpose taking the advantage of availability of river water and coal. While thermal power is a reality in India since about 70 per cent of our electricity generation comes from TPPs and 85 per cent of TPP are coal based. The search for other alternative sources of energy as substitute has not been explored sufficiently. The fossil fuel burning has been globally a matter of concern in the context of climate change and many countries have aimed to close their coal fired plants such as Germany by 2038.
The coal reserve areas in Odisha mostly dominated by farming communities, land, water and forest based small producers, farmers, Adivasies, Dalits and fisher folks who are also largely educationally and socially backward. The coal areas of Hemagiri of Sundargada is also a fifth schedule area where no rules of PESA and FRA and many other related acts are not being followed. The Laxmanpur block in Jharasuguda and Talcher, Chhedipada and Kaniha blocks in Angul district are no way developed blocks and lag behind in all kinds of social indicators. In spite of increasing mining and industries for last so many years even the basic problem of drinking water and sanitation has not been solved in these areas.
The earlier villages are getting converted into slums. There has been no improvement in health and education of the people in the areas and slowly these areas remain difficult for living of the poor without land, housing and basic amenities for life. The DMF which is established for last five years with huge money has remained unspent and diverted to other areas. The CSR funds of industries in these areas also largely continue to be unspent though people in these areas have been displaced and lost their traditional livelihood due to mining.
The direct employment scope for the locals has not improved much due to discriminatory employment policy. The move of privatization of mining sector in general and coal in particular will further pave the way for more privatisation of public sector companies such as Coal India and Mahanadi Coal Fields Limited (MCL) while limiting its sole monopoly over coal mining in Odisha. This is going to impact public sector employment scope for locals and its welfare activities for the people of Odisha and locals. Because private sector does not follow any employment policy that is socially inclusive and does not protect the interest of the affected and displaced.
The MCL has been a major player in coal mining along with other companies having captive mines but MCL has provided direct employment to about 22,000 people as regular employee and many contractual employees under private contractors along with its CSR activities. MCL has supported the SUM Hospital for a 500 bedded COVID-19 hospital.
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