The Brahmani Anchal Surakshya Parishad has severely criticised the State Government and the Mahanadi Coalfield Limited (MCL) for subsidence occurring in the Talcher town due to non-filling of sand in mining vacuums.
“Even as subsidence has occurred 15 times in Talcher due to non-filling of sand in the vacuum of the Deulabera colliery during the last 32 years, the inaction by the State Government and Mahanadi Coalfield Limited has put life of residents of Talcher in dagnger,” alleged Parishad president Bibhudhendra Prasad Das.
Das said the Steel and Mines Ministers have admitted in the State assembly at different times that subsidence is occurring due to non-filling the Deulabera colliery vacuum and even the Government knows that Talcher is an earthquake-prone area as per the survey conducted by Geological Survey of India. Despite this, the Government is not taking any action for safety of the Talcher residents, lamented Das, a former MLA.
In a letter to the Steel and Mines Minister Prafulla Mallick, Das mentioned that the MCL had assured the Government following a meeting in 1981 to fill the underground of the colliery. But subsidence has occurred 14 times since that day. The MCL had not filled up the vacuum fully by the year 2011 as revealed by the then Steel and Minister Badri Narayan Pata. The Minister revealed that only 41.80 per cent of the coal mining vacuum was filled with sand. The recent pot-hole creation indicates that the vacuum is yet to be filled up, said Das.
Stating that the Directorate General of Mines Safety of the Union Government has not allowed the Angul-Talcher-Meramundili Development Authority to make any building plan for Talcher due to its seismic trough line, Das demanded that intending families of the town should be shifted to safer places with adequate compensation. He informed that a decision to this effect had been taken at an all-party meeting convened by the then Dhenkanal district Collector in 1992.
Das further demanded that all the vacuums in the coalmines be filled with sand at the earliest.