The Angul district administration has stressed on conducting the scheduled public hearing for the Machhakuta Opencast Coalmine of the MAHAGUJ company in Chhendipada tehsil on September 4.
At a Press conference here on Sunday, district Collector SR Yadav and SP N Bhola said the Odisha High Court has accorded permission for conducting the public hearing.Addressing a meeting of the affected village leaders, Yadav said the public hearing is only to be conducted for the coalmine and the issues on land acquisition, displacement and rehabilitation would not be discussed in that forum.
The Collector and the SP stressed on maintaining law and order and sought cooperation of the stakeholders for a smooth conduct of the public hearing.The first public hearing for the project had been postponed in 2011 due to massive violence at the spot. Some project-affected people of nine villages set fire to the venue besides assaulting the then local MlA Khageswar Behera, who was present at the public hearing.
The Machhakata Coal Block of the Talcher Coalfields was allotted to the Maharashtra State Power Generation Company ltd (MSPGCl) and the Gujarat State Power Generation Company ltd (GSECl) by the Ministry of Coal in 2006 to develop the opencast mine for power generation at their linked power plants.
The MGCl, a joint venture of MSPGCl and GSECl, proposes to develop the coal block with a coal washery at Chhendipada. The coal to be produced from the block would be shared between GSECl and MSEB in ratio of 40 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively.The Adani Mining has been appointed as the mine developer and operator by the MGCl. The company requires 2,640 hectares of private land, which is 87 per cent of the total requirement. However, the company has not been able to start mining operation since five years due to land acquisition problems.
Adani Group chief Gautam Adani recently met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Chief Secretary GC Pati and discussed about the company’s proposal of mining and power plant at Chhendipada.Rajesh Jha, who recently joined as the CEO, CTl & Odisha Mines of the Adani Group, has stressed upon inclusive growth, touching every member of the community.