The State Government has decided to urge the Centre to de-notify coal zones where MCl is unlikely to undertake mining operations in the near future.
Sources said the Chief Secretary AP Padhi has held talks with senior officials of Steel and Mines Department in this regard recently. The department has too started initiative to collect details from the district administrations of Angul and Jharsuguda in this regard.
While hundreds of acres of land have been notified under Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act 1957, there is hardly any mining operation being taken up by the Mahanadi Coalfields limited (MCl). Villages around these areas see no development work as they under the purview of the CBA Act.
Peoples’ representatives of Angual and Jharsuguda have been urging the State Government to take up the matter with the Union Government.
Official record shows that over 60 per cent of lands in these districts have been notified under the Act. Both the districts are highly populated and there is hardly any scope to take up developmental activities in the areas notified under the CBA Act.
In Angul, over 20 gram panchayats are notified under the CBA Act and villagers have been deprived of getting Indira Awas, Bju Pucca Ghar or even a tube well.
Angul district Collector Anil Samal raised the issue during the recently held Collectors’ Conference.
Similarly, the much-talked Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 leaves Odisha saddled with a fresh set of concerns unique to it.
The Act doesn’t benefit Odisha people as most of the land acquired fall under the purview of the CBA Act.
Officials term it as “headache” because under it, the Centre can, and often does, peremptorily issue notices to acquire land, leaving Odisha officials to deal with the messy fallout of displacement, compensation and rehabilitation.
In many cases, the displaced don’t get compensation, with protest movements simmering and flaring up for decades.
Officials feel changes are required and State be given more powers under the CBA Act, 1957.
By way of a simple notification, the Centre acquires land in and around coal mines under the CBA 1957 Act. Provisions of The Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 (PESA), Forest Rights Act, among others get violated in the process, said a senior official.