Tata Steel and Adhunik Power and Natural Resource Limited (APNRL) were jointly assigned about 237 hectare of land for mining coal at Ganeshpur in Latehar district of Jharkhand. The proposed mining area falls in Jala village. The village is inhibited by the tribal people mainly ‘Oraon’ tribe. The villagers had refused to give consent to coal mining. Rather they are claiming the proposed mining area for their use under forest rights claims as the area is a forest land. They demanded that their unresolved forest rights claims were to be settled first, before any mining activity. As they were unwilling to give consent, they have alleged that they were threatened by the Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee, a left wing extremist group and the “company’s dalal” (middlemen) for opposing the mining project [1]. |
Description:
Basic Data
| Name of conflict: | Ganeshpur Coal Mine, Jharkhand, India |
| Country: | India |
| State or province: | Jharkhand |
| Location of conflict: | Village-Latehar |
| Accuracy of location | HIGH (Local level) |
Source of Conflict
| Type of conflict. 1st level: | Mineral Ores and Building Materials Extraction |
| Type of conflict. 2nd level: | Mineral ore exploration |
| Specific commodities: | Coal |
Project Details and Actors
| Project details | Ganeshpur coal block falls under the Ganeshpur Panchayat area in Palamau district of Jharkhand state. The coal block is spread with an estimated area of 2.37 Sq.Km. The project is a green field project and the estimated cost of the project is 550 crore. The total Land Requirement is 398 hectare. Among the total land, the agricultural land is about 154 hectare and forestland is about 168 hectare [3,4]. |
| Project area: | 398 |
| Level of Investment for the conflictive project | 92,707,865 (550 crore) |
| Type of population | Rural |
| Start of the conflict: | 01/05/2009 |
| Company names or state enterprises: | Tata Steel from India Tata Group from India Adhunik Power and Natural Resources Limited from India |
| Relevant government actors: | Government of India, Ministry of Coal, Government of Jharkhand, Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India |
| Environmental justice organizations (and other supporters) and their websites, if available: | Jala Forest Rights Committee (FRC), Village forest rights committee (FRC) |
Conflict & Mobilization
| Intensity | HIGH (widespread, mass mobilization, violence, arrests, etc...) |
| Reaction stage | PREVENTIVE resistance (precautionary phase) |
| Groups mobilizing: | Farmers Indigenous groups or traditional communities Landless peasants Social movements |
| Forms of mobilization: | Boycotts of official procedures/non-participation in official processes Development of alternative proposals Public campaigns Street protest/marches Strikes |
Impacts
| Environmental Impacts | Potential: Biodiversity loss (wildlife, agro-diversity), Food insecurity (crop damage), Loss of landscape/aesthetic degradation, Deforestation and loss of vegetation cover, Groundwater pollution or depletion, Large-scale disturbance of hydro and geological systems, Reduced ecological / hydrological connectivity, Mine tailing spills, Other Environmental impacts |
| Socio-economical Impacts | Visible: Violations of human rights Potential: Displacement, Loss of livelihood, Loss of traditional knowledge/practices/cultures, Specific impacts on women, Land dispossession, Loss of landscape/sense of place |
Outcome
| Project Status | Proposed (exploration phase) |
| Conflict outcome / response: | Compensation Environmental improvements, rehabilitation/restoration of area Land demarcation Strengthening of participation Under negotiation Violent targeting of activists Project cancelled |
| Proposal and development of alternatives: | Although some villagers agreed to the mining project with the condition that some portion of land will be left untouched for their use, most of them were unwilling to give up their rights over the land. Villagers submitted their community forest rights claims on 456 hectares of forest in October 2011. Beside this the village also passed a resolution against the mining project on August 18, 2012 [1] |
| Do you consider this an environmental justice success? Was environmental justice served?: | No |
| Briefly explain: | Villagers, mostly the tribal are dead against the project. They want their forest right claim settled first. Government official and Company representatives claimed that villagers had given their consents for the project. However, the villagers had claimed that most of them had not given their permission [2] Unwilling villagers submitted memorandum to the Jharkhand Governor. They alleged that the gram sabha was held without their consent. So, the resolution passed by the Gramsabha (village meeting) was illegal [1]. Members of the Sub Divisonal Level Committee rejected the claims for community rights over the 456 hectares of forest, recognizing only two burial grounds as community land. The Forest Department had also falsely implicated a number of villagers (perhaps the unwilling villagers) for destroying forest and cutting trees [1]. |
Sources & Materials
| Juridical relevant texts related to the conflict (laws, legislations, EIAs, etc) |
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Meta information
| Contributor: | Swapan Kumar Patra |
| Last update | 18/08/2019 |
| Conflict ID: | 1352 |
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