Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has asked the Angul district administration to directly communicate with the affected people. The administration has been asked keep middlemen away while settling the rehabilitation package for operation of Mandakini coal block allotted to NTPC. A direction in this regard was issued Thursday by Chief Secretary AK Tripathy while reviewing and resolving the issues related to exploration from Mandakini coal mines. “Explain to the proposed affected people properly about the rehabilitation package,” Tripathy said. He added that proper housing with basic infrastructure facilities must be made in rehabilitation sites.
The matters relating to the conduct of Socio-Economic Survey (SES), processing of forest diversion proposal, getting the environmental clearances from the statutory authority in Government of India, drilling activities by the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute for estimating resource quality and preparation of scientific mining plan and others were discussed in the meeting.
Tripathy directed the Angul District Collector to prepare a comprehensive rehabilitation package as per provisions of the Coal Bearing Area Development Act and the rehabilitation policy of Odisha.
“Odisha’s rehabilitation policy is a very dynamic and progressive one. Proper packaging of the compensation awards would be beneficial to the people,” Tripathy said. He added that the mine developing authorities were asked to design rehabilitation package as per local requirement in consultation with district authorities.
Tripathy instructed the district collector, SDO and Tahasildar of the area to communicate with would be affected people directly without any middleman and explain to them properly about the ‘rehabilitation package’.
Additional Chief Secretary, Forest and Environment Mona Sharma said the forest diversion proposal would be sent to the Union Ministry of Forest and Environment in the coming week.
Other than state government officials, NTPC CMD Gurdeep Singh along with senior officers from concerned departments participated in the discussions. The NTPC has been allocated the Mandakini coal block in Angul district.