CIL wants to revise rehab policy

Coal India Ltd (CIL) has requested the Union government for a change in the existing Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) policy.

The company has sent letter to the concerned ministry in this regard along with a set of suggestion.

Coal India needs about 42,000 hectors of land in order to meet the Eleventh Five Year Plan target of 520 million tons of coal.

Partha Bhattacharya, chairman of CIL, said there is a need for a flexible and sector specific policy.

"The existing uniform policy has not yielded the desired results and there is a need for a flexible policy," he added.

At the moment the R&R policy states that for the families losing more than 2 acre of irrigated land or 3 acres of non-irrigated land) because of land acquisition should be provided with a job for one family members.

According to the Chairman, this alone would not solve the problem of rehabilitation.

"In most of the cases it has been found that the member who has the job, leave his family and hence the other members of the family are left with nothing for survival," he explained.

"There cannot be a uniform policy and we should have the freedom to customise the package and act after proper consultation with the land owners," he said.

Bhattacharya however, said that the company would give preference to the members of land losers, provided they have the desired qualities in case of employment and is prepared to spend on developing training institutes.

"We are ready to invest on facilitating skill up gradation via training programmes, so that the individuals could be absorbed in other jobs as well," he explained.

According to Bhattacharya, one time money is not a solution for the land owners as they usually squander it with in a short period time and so the promotion of social infrastructure would be very important.

"The policy should be so designed that it can improve the social infrastructure and quality of life," he said.