MCL announces lucrative cash package for displaced persons

Faced with the problem of providing resettlement site to the people displaced by mining operation of state-run Mahanadi Coalfield Limited (MCL), the company has offered lucrative cash package in lieu of resettlement plots to the land oustees, modifying the state rehabilitation policy, 2006 in the process.

The coal company has increased the cash package to Rs 3 lakh to each oustee in lieu of resettlement plot from Rs 63,000 provided in the state policy. It has also announced an additional cash incentive of Rs 1 lakh to an oustee for vacating his homestead land within one month of notice, Rs 75,000 for leaving within two months and Rs 50,000 for leaving in three months.

 

“Besides, the oustees will be provided Rs 1, 87,000 house building assistances, maintenance allowance and other facilities as enshrined in the state policy. In addition, they will be offered jobs in the project as per the eligibility criteria prescribed in the state policy”, said a top official of the company.

The company took this decision in wake of non-availability of government land for resettling hundreds of land losers in Talcher and Ib valley areas. “Normally state should provide land for relocation of people displaced by coal mines but there was shortage of land for this purpose”, said the official.

He informed that the state chief secretary had earlier advised MCL to go for purchase of private land to resettle displaced people. But it is not possible to acquire vast areas from private land owners. So the company, after a great deal of thought, has decided to enhance the cash package to the displaced who will not opt for plot to be relocated. They can purchase the land of their own with the enhanced money, he informed.

Providing resettlement colonies to displaced villagers in Talcher, IB valley and Basundhara areas is a major problem facing the company which reported minus growth in the last fiscal.

However, the coal company remained the highest profit making unit under the umbrella of Coal India in 2010-11, he claimed.