About 60 tribals, mostly from Tala Anchalbadi village under the banner of Sasu Bohumali Surakhya Samiti, armed with lethal weapons, captured a stage at Kiapadu village under Gumma gram panchayat where a public hearing for establishing a mining company by RSB Metaltech was scheduled to be held. The public hearing was timed at 11 am on Wednesday for enlisting the grievances of the public for an extractive bauxite mine in the area. The public hearing was cancelled in view of the tension.
Around 200 police personnel including additional SP, DSP and Rayagada IIC were present at the venue, besides officials like ADM, Sub-Collector, PA, ITDA, K Singhpur BDO and Rayagada ABDO. While the tribals were dismantling the stage, none dared to prevent them.
However, a section of pro-company activists marched towards the stage to have a face-off. Apprehending a violent clash, police blocked the marching pro-company mob. However, the tribals opposing the company went violent, cut the ropes of the tent and set the entire tent on fire. Some of the resisting tribals even threw giant red ants towards the police and other officials who were seen running out of the spot rubbing their bodies. Scribes were not even spared. Nobody from the administration side wanted to take risk in convincing the enraged and unruly tribals to register their grievance peacefully. The protesting tribals who possessed traditional lethal weapons cut the bamboo pillars into pieces and shouted slogans against RSB and the State Government.
When the company representatives requested the Government officials to hold the public hearing under a tree and avoid the stage, they did not want to take risk. Seeing this as an opportunity, a few youth from Rayagada town under the banner ‘Save Jhanjabati River Campaign’ joined the angry resisting tribals and started shouting slogans. One of the protesters even asked why the public hearing was not conducted in one of the villages of Serigumma gram panchayat of Kalyan Singhpur block where most of the villages are affected. While Gumma gram panchayat is not going to be affected by the company, conducting the public hearing at the village is a manipulative tactic of RSB in tandem with the district administration, he alleged.
A former sarapanch, requesting anonymity, said that many of the resisting tribals have taken benefit from RSB-CRS initiative in the past like mobile medical facilities, children education in KISS residential school in Bhubaneswar and other schools at Rayagada, etc. “All the villages except Tala Anchalbadi have given their consent for establishment of the company. In Tala Anchalbadi also the community is divided on this issue,” he said.
Tala Anchalbadi consists of 122 households and an adult population of around 400. Only around 50 people are resisting, he informed. The officials of RSB Metaltech said that they were prepared to have dialogues through a peaceful means.