Government has decided to move a request to the Centre to denotify areas.

1. Denotify
Unutilised Coal
Zone
http://tathya.in/story/22426/0/Denotify-Unutilised-Coal-Zone

3. Odisha Government has decided to move a
request to the Centre to denotify areas in
Coal Zones where there is “no plan” for
mining operations in near future.

4. Sources said the Chief Secretary AP Padhi
has held talks with the senior officials of
the Department of Steel & Mines in this
regard recently.

5. The Department of Steel & Mines is in
touch with the District Administrations of
Angul and Jharsuguda for collecting details
in this regard.

6. The Union Ministry of Coal will be
approached to denotify those areas where
MCL has no plan to take up mining
activities.

7. While hundreds of acres of land have been
notified under Coal Bearing Areas
(Acquisition and Development) Act,
1957,(CBA) Act, there is hardly any mining
operations being taken up by the coal
major, Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL).

8. Thousands of villagers are suffering in
these areas as there is hardly any village
development work taken up because these
areas are falling under purview of the CBA
Act.

9. Peoples’ representatives of Angual and
Jharsuguda have time and again raised the
issue and have been urging the State
Government to take up the matter with the
Union Government.

10. Official record shows that over 60% of
land in these districts notified under the
purview of Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition
and Development) Act, 1957.

11. Both the districts are highly populated and
there is hardly any scope to take up
developmental activities in the areas
notified under CBA Act.

12. In Angul over 20 Gram Panchayats are
notified under CBA Act for years together
and no mining activities has been taken up
in the area.

13. Villagers in these areas are deprived of
getting Indira Awas, Biju Pucca Ghar or
even a tube well, for which they are
suffering.

14. Anil Samal, Collector Angul has raised the
issue during the recently held Collectors’
Conference and brought it to the notice of
the State Administration about the plight
of the hapless people in the Coal Zone.

15. Similarly, the much-talked about The Right
to Fair Compensation and Transparency in
Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and
Resettlement Act, 2013 leaves Odisha
saddled with a fresh set of concerns
unique to it.

16. The 2013 Act doesn’t have much
significance in the state which has some of
India’s richest mineral and coal reserves as
most of the land acquired fall under the
purview of the CBA Act.

17. Officials term it as “headache” because
under it, the Centre can, and often does,
peremptorily issue notices to acquire land,
leaving Odisha officials to deal with the
messy fallout of displacement,
compensation and rehabilitation.

18. In many cases, the displaced don’t get
compensation, with protest movements
simmering and flaring up for decades.

19. Officials feel changes are required and
State be given more powers under the
CBA Act, 1957.

20. By way of a simple notification, the Centre
acquires land in and around coal mines
under the CBA 1957 Act. Provisions of
The Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled
Areas) Act 1996 (PESA), Forest Rights
Act, among others get violated in the
process, said a senior official.

21. Even as it is not known whether the Union
Government will tinker the CBA Act, 1957,
Centre is mulling to bring few changes in
the people's oriented Act passed under
UPA regime, said sources.

22. Latest Odisha Government News Update
in http://tathya.in/