Protracted struggle

Despite legal win, three tribal villages in Andhra Pradesh are still fighting the state to save their land from mining

- SHAGUN NIMMALAPADU AND KARAKAVALASA

iN 1997, the residents of Nimmalapadu, a village in Andhra Pradesh, achieved the unthinkable: they won they won a legal battle against the state government and a private company to save their village from mining.

The Supreme Court, while overruling a 1993 Andhra Pradesh High Court order in favour of the state government, declared that only people belonging to the Konda Dora tribe and their cooperatives can exploit the minerals in Fifth Schedule areas and that private mining here, even with government backing, is illegal. The verdict, popularly called the Samata judgement after the name of the non-profit that helped the people fight the case, adds that even if the state government decides to mine directly, it needs to keep the interest of the tribal people first.

Yet, over two decades later, the residents of the village near the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border are fighting the state over their calcite reserves. Calcite is a mineral that is used in building material, abrasives, soil treatment, construction aggregate, pigment, and other applications.