BHUBANESHWAR: With over 1600 land oustees waiting for jobs and another 5000 affected people need to be resettled by the Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), the state government has asked the Union Coal Ministry to resolve these issues in a time bound manner.
Though MCL, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, has increased the cash compensation in lieu of employment from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 16 lakh, the offer is not acceptable to land oustees. The affected families are persistent in their demand for jobs.
The failure of the MCL to provide job to the land oustees and resettlement of the displaced families have been triggering public protests and economic blockade hampering production and despatch of coal from Talcher area.
Senior officials of the Coal Ministry expressed concern over the frequent disruption in coal production at a recent meeting with Chief Secretary A P Padhi here at the state secretariat.
Stating that the Ministry has set a target for MCL to produce 250 million tonnes of coal by 2019-20, they said the the national PSU will not be able to achieve the target if the law and order situation is not maintained.
Highly placed sources in the Angul district administration said that about 327 cases have been registered and over 300 people have been arrested last year.
"The affected families have lost their patients as MCL is not addressing their problems. Land oustees waiting for jobs are only getting assurance from MCL. The faster the MCL settles this problem the better," the sources said.
Several delegations from Talcher, Jharsuguda and Sundargarh have gone to Delhi and discussed the issues pertaining to compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement and compensatory jobs to affected families problems with Union Coal Minister Piyush Goyal. However, the situation has remained the same, state BJP secretary Kalandi Samal said.
Expressing his disappointment over the functioning of Rehabilitation and Periphery Development Advisory Committee (RPDAC) of MCL, Samal said the panel has failed to address the problems of affected families.