Villagers of Talcher on Thursday called off their strike, which had paralysed the mines for a couple of days in all the projects of the Mahanadi Coalfields limited (MCl) impacting over two lakh tonnes of daily coal production and supply.
The decision to withdraw their agitation was taken by the protesting villagers of Bhalugadia at a meeting on Thursday afternoon in the office of district Collector, Angul. MCl CMD AN Sahay along with Director (Technical/Operations) AK Tiwari and Director (Technical/Projects and Planning) JP Singh participated in the meeting with the villagers besides the Collector and the SP of Angul.
At the meeting, MCl assured the villagers that the company was taking appropriate actions and 62 families of Bhalugadia village in Gopal Prasad West Block, whose land was reallocated to MJSJ limited, would be offered jobs within a month.
Meanwhile, the villagers also agreed to provide immediate possession of land to MCl, which is targeting mammoth 150 million tonnes coal production during current financial year.
Mining operations in the country’s largest coalfields in Talcher were totally stopped on May 6 after villagers forced a shutdown at all the projects of the MCl.