Local residents refuse to buy into Adani’s Gondalpura coal mining plans | Rare Techy

The Adani Group’s commercial coal mining project in Gondalpura Panchayat Block Barkagaon in Jharkhand faced fierce protests from locals, who did not want to give up their land for the project.

Planned to be operational by 2024, the coal blocks were allocated to conglomerates by the Union Coal Ministry in the first round of commercial coal block auctions in 2021. It is expected to produce 4 million tonnes of coal annually, which will be supplied to thermal power units.

Though the Hazaribagh administration has notified 513 acres for the project, the company is yet to receive it. Of the total, nearly 219 hectares are forest land and 70 hectares are Gair Majurwa. Local residents who opposed the project live and cultivate the remaining 224 hectares.

Adani’s efforts to hold gram sabhas with local residents to win them over failed. Two gram sabhas were held in October, with the help of the district administration and Nabard, which met with protests from the locals.

The company tried to gain the trust of the locals through corporate social responsibility initiatives such as health camps, distribution of nutritional supplements and medicines, and meeting the health expenses of 50 tuberculosis patients. But so far, his efforts have not yielded results.

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