Clearances held up for Nalco coal block

Mines ministry urges Odisha to resolve forest right issues

The central mines ministry has urged the Odisha government to expedite resolution of issues pertaining to forest rights to ease the process of forest land diversion for Utkal-E coal block allotted to National Aluminium Company (Nalco).

Forest rights issues have held up approval for Stage-I forest clearance, thereby delaying the operation of the coal block.

“Out of 488.53 acres of forest land required for the project, Nalco obtained forest rights certificate for 417.87 acres in June 2010 under Schedule Tribe and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act-2006. For the balance 70.66 acres, though palli sabha was held in 2011 and later on April 30, 2013 by the Angul district administration, an approval was not forthcoming. The matter is pending since long and this is holding up Stage-I forest clearance approval and in turn delaying the operation of Utkal-E coal block,” R H Khwaja, Union mines secretary wrote to Odisha chief secretary.

The ministry said Nalco has achieved major milestones like approval of mining plan, consent to establish, wildlife clearance, environment clearance, prior approval of mining lease and permission of water drawl. The navratna company has also incurred an expenditure of Rs 118.72 crore till the end of 2012-13. But work on a common approach road necessary to evacuate coal from the Utkal-E coal block is pending. The road was to be constructed for linking the Utkal-E coal block to the State Highway-63.

The project proponents of Utkal-C, Utkal-D, Utkal-E and Utkal-F had agreed to spare 20 meters of land for common corridor on the southern boundary of their respective mine block for use as common approach road to State Highway-63. However, the project is yet to take off as only Nalco and Tata Sponge Iron Ltd (Utkal-F block) have conveyed their consent to take part in construction of this common approach road.

The other bottleneck to development of Nalco’s coal block is pending acquisition of private land for construction of R&R (rehabilitation & resettlement) colony. Out of 13.07 acres of private land acquired for construction of R&R colony, disbursement has already been made for 8.52 acres of land. The disbursement of funds through the district authority for the balance land is delayed due to problems being faced from land owners of acquired land in R&R colony.

Nalco was allocated the Utkal-E coal block in August 2004 to meet the coal requirement of its captive power plant at Angul. It was imperative to start mining from this coal block since the company had no linkage and had to procure coal through e-auction or imports at much higher cost than captive production, affecting viability of its aluminium production.