Jharkhand tribals up against mining companies
Step into Jharkahnd's Tentoposi village in Seraikela district and you will be greeted with hostile glances. Sitting on rich mineral reserves of iron ore, residents of this village are constantly under the fear of displacement and loss of livelihood sources.
Tata Steel has already announced that it will set up a 12-million tonne integrated steel plant in the area at an investment of Rs 42,000 crore and has signed mou with the state government.
The villagers suspect that there are people lurking around the village to usurp their land. Hence, they are on alert. They have created a security cordon around the village. Volunteers, wielding bows and arrows, guard the barricaded village at all hours. No government official or a media person is allowed in.
Similar security cordons are common in Hazaribagh's Karanpura valley.According to the state industries department, the valley has huge coal reserves; its Punkhri-Barwadih coal block alone has deposits of 1,400 million tonnes of thermal grade coal. Industries, including the National Thermal Power Corporation (ntpc), a public sector giant, have placed bids to mine the area. ntpc plans to set up a coal-fuelled power plant here. The project also envisages opencast mining to extract 15 million tones of coal a year, which is likely to displace 14,000 people
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