Food Security of the displaced people: A case study of the Opencast Projects in Singareni Collieries
By Pittala Ravinder
Unmindful coal mining in India is fast turning out to be environmental and human disaster. Apart from destabilising the ecological balance in the coal mining areas, the callous attitude of authorities is throwing millions of local people to hunger and health hazards. This is the case with Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) too.
The problem of coal mining is manifold. The destruction of the pre-existing habitat and livelihood opportunities by the coal mining industry is creating chaos. The perils of coal mining are evident, irrespective of nature of the mining - from small scale coal mining to large opencast projects (OCPs) and deep underground coal mines.
The social, economical and political implications of coal mining assumes far reaching as this principal mineral wealth lies in the most forested regions and those homelands traditionally inhabited by Tribals, Dalits and indigenous communities. The coal belt area where SCCL mines too is one such region.
As governments have failed to wake upto the energy needs of the country well in time, the authorities have turned to short-gestation coal mining, OPCs, as a solution. But, this machinery intensive opencast coal mining is proving to be a multiple disaster to people of the entire area.
The State-owned SCCL is the only coal producing company in South India and the first public sector company in India. The SCCL is at present operating 36 underground and 14 opencast projects. It has set a production target of 50 million tones during the financial year of 2009-10, as against the demand for 65 million tones.
The SCCL is on a rapid plan which includes the conversion of underground coal mines into OPCs, expansion of the existing OCPs and opening of new OCPs. The SCCL has plans to add 15 more OCPs in its operational areas including Adilabad, Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam districts of Telangana region.
Due to the callous attitude meted out towards the land-ousters on earlier occasions while dealing with the issues related to land acquisition, Rehabilitation & Resettlement and payment of compensation as per the statutory provisions, the company is now facing the wrath of the Project Affected Families (PAFs). As the land acquisition for the proposed projects had become a herculean task for the Singareni management, most of the new OC projects have been moving at a snail’s pace.
Local people are concerned about the ill effects of the Opencast mining. In the process of extraction of coal by the opencast mining method, the surface soil (over burden-OB) has to be removed at an average stripping ratio of 1:5 (coal and OB). The OB is stockpiled at the nearby agricultural lands in heaps and bounds.

The pits of the OC mine, admeasuring to about 250 hectares each, will invariably squeeze all the sources of water both surface and the under ground. As all the water resources turning out to be dry, the agricultural activity within the radius of ten kilometers of the OC project will become infertile and useless.
In most of the cases, the Singareni management is only acquiring agricultural lands and leaving the habitats to its fate. Thus the PAFs are losing their only livelihood from the traditional agriculture and facing serious threat to their food security. This way, people in the coal belt area are going to face a major manmade calamity. ends
Mining to leave villagers homeless
N. Rahul
Villages near underground and open-cast coal mines to be evicted in the wake of SCCL’s expansion plans
– Photos: U. Damodar Dire straits: TRS legislators Etala Rajender and Koppula Eshwar and Telangana Vidyavanthula Vedika leaders inspecting the OCP-3 project in Godavarikhani coal belt region in Karimnagar district on Sunday. (Right) An elderly woman displays the damage caused due to blasting activity in Vakilpalli village.
GODAVARIKHANI: A government primary school at Vakilpalli village near here was closed recently as the habitation is on the verge of extinction. The government has also thought not fit to provide works to villagers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) nor take up any other welfare activity, including construction of houses for poor.
The reason: Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) has located an underground mine in the vicinity and the village falls within the sanitised zone of its operations. Since it was not safe to permit human habitation in the area any more, the company acquired cultivable lands from villagers at Rs. 15,000 an acre 15 years ago and is well on way to displace them from their homes after compensating them by a consent award.
Compensation
On the contrary, the SCCL management is against taking over Singireddypalli village which also falls within the operational area of another mine but has bowed to political pressure in conceding the demand of local people to displace them after fixing a price for their properties.
The management initially refused to take over the houses though it acquired agricultural lands long ago as coal reserves were lacking underneath the village.
Moreover, the villagers inflated figures in claiming compensation for structures.
The claim under the head of ‘teak wood’ itself for 600 houses was Rs. 1.5 crore, the company said.
Apart from Vakilpalli and Singireddypalli, Peddampet, Mangalapalli, Chandanapur, Chillapalli and Dubbapalli are among villages near underground and open-cast coal mines that are due to be evicted in the wake of aggressive expansion plans by SCCL.
A large team of media persons which was taken to the two villages by Telangana Vidyavanthula Vedika was shown the pathetic living conditions of the local population on Sunday.
Leave alone employment as agriculture has vanished from the area due to acquisition of open lands by the company, the villages lacked basic facilities like drinking water. While Vakilpalli got water for domestic use by SCCL’s water tankers as the water in local wells was sucked by the mine, the people of Singireddypalli were left with a single hand-pump operated well at one end of the village.
The banks refused to provide loans to the self-help groups in the villages as the shifting of the villages was imminent.
When contacted, SCCL chairman and managing director S. Narsing Rao said that the company was forced to evict the villages as it was desperate to meet the high demand for coal. It could not afford leaving out layers of coal as thin as 40 cms.
Grievance
He admitted the land oustees nursed a genuine grievance in their resettlement and rehabilitation but the company was trying to be liberal in payment of compensation despite systemic failures.
Singareni to downsize workforce
N. Rahul
HYDERABAD: The management of Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) said that it will reduce its manpower under aggressive plans to expand its open-cast mining and introduce mechanisation in underground mines.
The company has a workforce of 74,000, against the peak of 1.19 lakh in 1994, of which 65,000 are employed in 35 underground mines. Eighty per cent of the salary bill of the company was paid to underground staff, SCCL chairman and managing director S. Narsing Rao told The Hindu.
He said the number of workers could go down further as underground mines were closed due to the expiry of their life.
A couple of mines in Godavarikhani were already on the verge of closure but the staff would be redeployed elsewhere until their retirement. However, there would not be any further recruitment to fill vacancies caused by retirement.
Bar on new recruitment
Mr. Rao estimated 5,000 to 6,000 coal fillers in underground mines retiring by the end of March 2012. The company would not recruit this category of workers who currently number 12,000 as the trade could be mechanised. On the other hand, the company had to continue about 400 jobs in underground mines, including those of coal-cutters and tram operators, as they could not be mechanised.
The company would slightly increase skilled jobs to implement its mechanisation programme and expansion of open-cast mining at Ramakrishnapur in Adilabad, Illendu and Sattupalli in Khammam and Godavarikhani in Karimnagar.
The complete ban that it had imposed on recruitment of unskilled or semi-skilled workers since 1997 would continue, he added.
Incurs loss
Mr. Rao also said that the company incurred a loss of Rs. 840 crore on underground mines last year. After cross-subsidising a profit of Rs. 1,100 crore from open-cast mines, the company earned a net profit of Rs. 260 crore last year.
Villagers deprived of safe life, clean air

PS Dileep
First Published : 22 Jul 2009 02:22:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 22 Jul 2009 10:41:29 AM IST

GODAVARIKHANI: Everyday as the clock ticks 3.30 p.m., the otherwise peaceful village of Vakeelpalle of Kamaanpur mandal in Karimnagar district turns into a warzone.
Whatever they might be doing, the villagers leave their houses and run for shelter under trees. Youth get busy shifting the old and sick even as women bring their children together before the air is filled with the deafening sounds.
Falling of utensels on the ground, cracking of walls and shaky earth are all common for these villagers as they happen to reside just 2 km away from the one of the biggest opencast mines (OCP-1) of Ramagundam division.
“Outsiders might find it shocking but it is a daily exercise for us,’’ explained Samala Ravi, one of the scores of unemployed youth in the village which has houses in dilapidated condition with wide cracks on the walls.
The opencast mining projects of coal by the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) are depriving the villages in the surrounding areas of not only safe life but also protected drinking water, clean air and livelihood.
Though the SCCL management claims to be supplying water through tankers in public interests, villagers accuse the company for diminishing groundwater levels and pollution. “Our village well got dried up and all we get from our agriculture borewells is black coloured water which we are forced to use for other household purposes,’’ said Y Sarada, a housewife in Vakeelapalle.
For each opencast project, surface soil (or overburden) is removed in an area of about 1,000 to 1,200 acres. For each tonne of coal excavation, the SCCL removes about five tonnes of soil (or overburden). This is leading to decrease in groundwater levels and squeezing all the water sources turning lands within about 5 km radius of the opencast projects into infertile and useless. Though the SCCL authorities have been claiming to be closing these mines using the overburden soil excavated from other mines, the exercise does not seem to be yielding any immediate results. Further, the locals alleged that the overburden is dumped in agricultural lands but not in closed opencast mines.
Meanwhile, a SCCL official on condition of anonymity admitted that the budget for reclamation of land and plantation has been decreasing in the past few years. However, the official refused to divulge the statistics of plant indent and reasons for reduction of the budget for reclamation. He also admitted that the opencast mining is causing serious air pollution apart from increasing the temperature levels inordinately which is comparatively less in case of underground mines.
“The SCCL management has closed six opencast projects in the past few years but none of these areas does seem to have reclaimed their original state. There are no signs of water or greenary except for a few patches here and there,’’ pointed out M Kodandram, president of Telangana Vidyavanthula Vedika. He said that about 19 villages in Godavarikhani area have been severely affected by the opencast mining in terms of environment.
In Jallaram gram panchayat area alone, about 10,000 acres of agricultural land in villages like Venkatraopalle, Peddampet, Mangalapalle and Singireddypalle turned useless due to the opencast mining. “Several villages like Singireddypalle have been left to their fate where villagers does not even have the freedom to attend nature’s call in open land as the land now belongs to the SCCL,’’ lamented Y Odelu of Singireddypalle.
These villages are all surrounded by lands belonging to the SCCL.
‘OPCs taken up to privatise Singareni’
Express News Service
First Published : 21 Jul 2009 03:30:00 AM IST
Last Updated :

WARANGAL: Open cast projects have been taken up only to privatise Singareni Collieries, Telangana Vimochana Samithi leader and Dharti Bachao Andolan convener Tejavat Bellaiah Naik has alleged.
Speaking to mediapersons here today, Naik urged the people to make the anti-OCP meet to be held at Bellampalli on July 22 a success.
The workers and people’s associations have obstructed attempts for privatisation, earlier, he reminded and alleged that the management was trying to privatise the organisation in phases by taking up open cast projects.
Naik also alleged that attempts were on lease the OCPs to the ruling party leaders who had set up thermal power stations in the private sector.
The coal from these mines is being shifted to the power stations The chief minister’s family, relatives, friends and supporters, his advisor KVP Ramachandra Rao have set up power stations in Andhra and Rayalaseema, he said and added that it has been decided to lease out OPCs to those owning power stations.
It has been proposed that 72 OPCs be taken up in Telangana. Of them, 17 have been started but three of them have been shut down for lack of profits, he said.
Naik lamented that the projects were destroying habitations, fields, lakes and other water bodies. Nearly 65 villages will be exposed to the risks of the projects, he said. Attempts are on to shift Bellampalli and Illandu villages.
The Singareni management has stalled water supply to Bellampalli, he poined out.
The projects to be taken up in the stretch between Bhupalpalli, Warangal district to Manugur in Khammam district will damage the historice structures built in Kakatiya era and several lakes, he lamented. The Ramappa temple and lake are also likely to face the risk, he said.
Stating that harmful radioactive material was being used in blasting the mines, Naik said the emanating ash was proving dangerous to the fields and animals. And the Singareni management which had promised to give Rs 10 lakh compensation per acre has not given nothing more than Rs 1.50 lakh per acre, he said.
The mines, Naik said, will also render several jobless as OCPs need only 300 workers against nearly 1,500 necessary for digging in an underground mine. The two-lakh work force has been reduced to 70,000 now and a decision has been taken to further cut it down to 50,000 in the near future, he warned. The recognition of workers’ unions will be scrapped if the number of workers are reduced, according to the rules of Central Industrial Policy. And workers will have no voice, he said. The Singareni management, he said, was acting like the East India Company.
He demanded that the open cast mining leading to ecological imbalance should be stopped immediately.
SCCL gets 100 ha of forest land
Express News Service
First Published : 13 Jul 2009 09:38:14 AM IST
Last Updated : 13 Jul 2009 12:16:02 PM IST

HYDERABAD: Despite the protests by the Opposition parties, the State Government issued fresh orders allotting 100.82 hectares of forest land for open-cast mining for Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) for mining of coal for the Srirampur Opencast Project-2 at Indaram reserve forest in Mancherial division.
Orders to this effect were issued on July 10. The SCCL will get 180.88 ha of forest land in the reserve forest of Mancherial division in Adilabad district for underground mining.
For open-cast mining, the SCCL should take measures like fencing, protection and regeneration of the safety zone area (7.5 metere strip all along the outer boundary of the mining lease area as recommended by the State Government).
Besides this, the afforestation on degraded forest land to be selected elsewhere, measuring one and a half times the area under safety zone, should also be done at the project cost.
The SSCL also take proper mitigative measures to minimise soil erosion and choking of streams.
In the underground mining area, the SCCL had to undertake afforestation measures in the blanks within the lease area. The forest land shall not be used for any purpose other than the specified need. The SCCL will make arrangements for free supply of coal to labourers and staff working on the project site so as to avoid any pressure on the adjacent forest areas. The period of permission under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 will be 20 years.
SCCL shall take up afforestation inside the forest area in 100m radius from the permitted lease area in consultation with the forest department, if the density of the growth was less than 0.4. The SCCL has to bear the cost of damages if any to the plantations existing and raised by the forest department on the surface.