Jindal Coal Mines: Destroying Land, Disrupting Life
Channel: VideoVolunteers
Date: 18/02/2013

"JSPL constantly endeavours to empower the people around its plants and upgrade their standards and quality of living." So proclaims the Jindal Steel and Power conglomerate on its official website. Little actual evidence of this empowerment is to be seen in villages like Kosampalli of Chhattisgarh's Raigarh district, where extensive and indiscriminate blast mining of the area's abundant coal reserves is threatening its inhabitants with homelessness.

Today's video examines the plight of Kanaiyaram Patel and his fellow residents of Kosampalli, where unregulated blast mining being conducted at the Jindal Group's Open Coal Block is causing structural damage to houses in the adjoining village. Set up by force through a string of underhand deals, the plant is now rendering its already impoverished neighbours homeless. Needless to say, none of the initial promises made by either the government or the company, such as the construction of toilets or the generation of employment, have been kept.

 Distraught and disillusioned, the villagers went on a protest strike from the 5th to the 10th of September 2012, during which they blocked roads and stopped mining activity at the coalfield. After a few glib attempts at appeasement, their protest was predictably met with threats and aggression. 

Our correspondent Savita Rath, herself a resident and victim of the region, tells us:

"The mining has now reached within 40 ft. of the village and houses are beginning to break from the impact of the blasts. The people are becoming homeless and they have nowhere to go. The noise is also unbearable. Mining starts at 9am in the morning and continues in bursts until 9pm at night. The children are terrified and babies are being born deaf."

"Raigarh is a Schedule V area, an Adivasi Block, but the Jindal Corporation did not even approach our village council for permission to build their plant. This goes against government legislation. After our protest in September, the state government and the Jindal Group had agreed to fix everything within 2 months. They had even said they would build us new houses. But it is now February, and the situation has only grown worse. They are ready to reimburse us up to Rs. 1,300 for each house broken, but we do not want to accept this. It is not possible to rebuild an entire house in Rs. 1,300."

"They should at least allocate us new land if they are taking away ours. But any opposition to their terms is met with threats of arrest and the people objecting have FIRs lodged against them. Only yesterday, the 14th of February, Mr. Patel and another protestor, Mr. Bhagat, had to file for bail in order to stay out of jail. I have also received warnings, but my status as a reporter has protected me. I really hope some solution can be found to our troubles because at the moment our situation is intolerable."

This extended conflict between locals and industrialists has become a sad legacy of the region. Agriculture is the mainstay of Chhattisgarh's economy, providing a livelihood for almost 80% of the population. However, the state's rich natural resources have attracted the interest of large power companies, which arrive peddling dreams of development but delivering little other than destruction. 

"Procedures have been simplified and there is complete transparency in decision-making", claims the state government, but the practice of a jan sunwai or public hearing, required officially before the setting up of a new plant, remains more often than not a complete farce. Locals still commemorate the 5th of January as a Black Day when, in 2008, the villagers of Tamnar were lathi charged by the police for protesting at one such hearing. The inhabitants of Gare had a small victory in 2012, when they broke the coal laws on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary by marching to the open mines in their vicinity and digging their own coal. On the whole, however, the battle sadly remains a losing one, and it can only be hoped that one day the people's cry for justice will be heard.

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http://amara.org/v/C39n/