The Union coal ministry is pushing the West Bengal government to bring changes in its land policy in view of the hurdles Coal India (CIL) subsidiary Eastern Coalfields (ECL) is facing in getting land for developing and expanding mines.
Union coal secretary Anil Swarup met West Bengal chief secretary Sanjay Mitra and said the state required revisiting its land policy and go for land acquisition to facilitate coal mining in the state. Following the Singur and Nandigram fiasco, the Mamata Banerjee-led government had scrapped the policy of land acquisition for industries and allied activities and only allowed direct purchase for industries.
Swarup said, “We held discussions on three specific projects and at least two would be shortly resolved.” Mitra, however, declined to comment on the meeting.
Subrata Chakravarty, ECL director, technical, told FE that increasing production was getting stuck for want of land. “We need the state government to transfer us certain vested land and acquire some land for us. There are two expansion projects, which can give us an incremental production of above 2.5 mt. There is one new project which will help us increasing our production to a great extent,” he said.
ECL requires 30-32 acre for expansion of its Mohanpur project, which can produce an additional 1 mt per annum and 50 acre for Bonbahal open cast — a new project. While land for the Mohanpur expansion could come through transferring vest land, the land for Bonbahal has to be acquired. ECL wants to avoid the direct purchase route and wants the state to acquire the land and transfer it to the subsidiary,” an ECL official said, adding there was another tranche of land which has to be transferred to ECL for increasing production at Khottadih.
However, an official in the state chief secretary’s office said, although the transfer of land wouldn’t be a problem, land acquisition by the state doesn’t seem a feasible proposition as scrapping land acquisition by the state government was a political decision.
The state had earlier acquired land for ECL to develop mines at Salanpur but the CIL subsidiary has so far not been able to take possession of the land due to local resistance, the state government official said.
“We have urged the state to help us rehabilitate the project-affected people. The state government can transfer land and give title deed to at least 80 project-affected families,” Chakravarty said.
Swarup, who recently took over as the coal secretary, also reviewed the plans of CIL and ECL for increasing production. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants a 10% increase in coal production and so the ministry wants to put all the upcoming projects on a fast track. “We will have to opt for shorter routes in getting land for projects,” a coal ministry official said.