Irrespective of the high-powered committee involving the Union Coal Secretary and top officials of the Coal India limited and its subsidiaries thumbing up proposal of the Jharia Rehabilitation Development Authority (JRDA), land acquisition for resettlement of fire-affected masses may be delayed.
Indications coming in about the Centre’s rollback on its proposed amendments in the land Acquisition Act-2013 (lAA) are feared to delay the process beyond the deadline 2019, set after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention.
Top sources in the Jharia Rehabilitation and Development Authority (JRDA) confided to The Pioneer that the decisions taken in the July 31 meeting in Delhi of the high-powered committee are not going to ease their problems.
“As per the Master Plan prepared based on the survey taken place in 2004-05, 54,159 families are residing in the fire-affected areas of Jharia. But as you know, in such cases numbers grow by leaps and bounds. Unofficially there are over 1 lakh families who needed to be rehabilitated. We need land for the purpose and despite offering greater compensation under lAA we would perhaps have to conduct SIA which would eat much of our time,” said a senior officer bearer of the Authority.
The high-powered committee meeting was represented by Divisional Commissioner Veena Shrivastava and Dhanbad DC KN Jha. It is learnt that the committee had agreed to acquire land for resettling the affected under the Urgency Clause of the existing land Acquisition Bill-2015, promoted by the BJP-led Government. Moreover, the decision taken is yet to be notified while its fate hangs in balance after the said rollback.
The Section-40 of the Clause permits land to be taken for emergency purposes-e.g. defence, national security or for any other emergency arising out of natural calamity or any other emergency.
However, the agency taking land has to pay the titleholders compensation seven times of the prevailing market rate against four times in the case of normal purpose in urban areas. In the case of Jharia fire, the State Government had directed the BCCl to acquire land by applying the provision.
“Under the Master Plan we have identified 6-7 villages for resettling people. It has to be localised as well. But if the idea of the Centre becomes a reality it would take greater degree of time to conduct social impact assessment (SIA) which was waived in the existing Ordinance. Also, it may see compensation coming down and then it is hard to judge the reaction of the land losers,” added the official.
Deputy Commissioner KN Jha informing about the meeting, said that besides the Urgency Clause condition the committee had also agreed to follow rehabilitation and resettlement policy of the CIl and also apply the package to be given to the fire affected families.
The Master Plan proposes to provide free two-room house measuring 27 meter2, Rs 10000 as shifting allowance to every family, income generation equivalent to 500 man-days with common facilities such as school, health etc.
Continuing efforts to control over 100-year old fire by sealing the surface, trenching and pumping in inert gases had limited success and were blamed for driving the BCCl close to bankruptcy. BCCl nevertheless claims that from earlier 9 km2 it has been tamed and brought down to 2.18 km2 at present. Experts say that the burning deposits of Jharia are particularly prized because these are the only source of top quality steelmaking coal in the country.