Home Secretary Asit Tripathy has categorically said that operations of the coalmines should not be disrupted due to law and order situation.
Tripathy was on Thursday reviewing the law and order situation in the coal zones of the State where the Mahanadi Coalfields limited (MCl) is operating its mines.
Many times, locals are resorting to strike and shutdown actions, resulting in law and order situation due to the indifferent attitude of the MCl authorities. long pending issues are not being sorted out by the MCl though people are pressing hard for solving them.
Tripathy asked the MCl authorities to look into the longstanding demands of the people as they are affected by coalmine operations and urged the top brass of the Central PSU to activate the CSR activities in the affected areas.
The meeting was attended by senior MCl officials, the RDC (North), the Collector and SP of Angul, Additional Secretary of Revenue and Special Secretary of Commerce & Transport.
Tripathy also asked the Angul district administration to look into the issues and sort them out soon so that law and order situation does not affect the running of coalmines.
Interestingly, while the MCl authorities blame the district administration for the slowdown of mining activities, statistics show that the MCl has achieved a growth over 20 per cent this year compared to the last year.
Several longstanding issues, which are raised repeatedly by the affected villagers, are just not addressed in a positive manner by the MCl authorities, said sources. Issues like provision of employment to the villagers of Danara are going unattended. This is causing trust deficit between the MCl and the villagers.
People are resorting to strike, and bowing under pressure the MCl is obliging them as in the case of Bhalugadia. Villagers stopped the mines for three long weeks, following which the MCl accepted their demand.
Police arrested 99 residents of the village, where the population is hardly 400 plus. However, the MCl backed out of its decision, it was pointed out at the meeting.
The Home Secretary asked the MCl authorities to properly coordinate with the district administration to sort out the pending issues.