Delayed by decades

Centre-state tussle and bureaucratic incompe-tencies withhold compensation for land acquisition in Jharkhand's coal belt

- SUKRITI VATS

BRIJ MAHTO from Jharkhand's Ramgarh district is tired of running from pillar to post to get compensation for his farmland acquired by Central Coalfields Limited 22 years ago. Mahto's family had held possession of over 6 hectares (ha) for more than 100 years before the Central government subsidiary acquired it. The piece of land had lasted and sustained at least four generations. Today, 35-year-old Mahto, who was once a proud farmer, is forced to seek out daily wage work to fend for his family.

Much before the state of Jharkhand was formed, Mahto's village Kedla had come in the grasp of the Central government under the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act (CBA), 1957. CBA allows the Union Ministry of Coal's Coal's public public sector undertaking Coal India Limited (CIL) and its subsidiaries like the Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) to acquire as much land as needed for exploration. The "economic interests" of the country justify mining without limitations, not even requiring consultation with the communities facing displacement.

CBA declares that the compensation is always secondary. The result is cases where the compensation is denied, delayed, inadequate and often gets decided after land acquisition, like those seen in Jharkhand.

The government has not released any consolidated data on land acquired for coal mining, people affected or compensation awarded in nearly a decade. The last major official estimates were in the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs' 2014 "Report of the High Level Committee on Socio-Economic, Health and Educational Status of Tribal Communities of India", which said that CIL and its subsidiary companies have displaced nearly 87,000 people since 1973, including more than 14,000 people from the Scheduled Tribes.