Bhubaneswar, June 23 (IANS) At least eight open cast coal mines of the Mahanadi Coal Fields Limited (MCL), a subsidiary of public sector undertaking Coal India, in Orissa are facing closure threat due to want of land, a company official said Wednesday.
The mines located in Talcher Coalfields in Angul district, some 180 km from Bhubaneswar,
are expanding but villagers oppose the mining activities, MCL spokesman Dikken Mehra told IANS.
‘Fear of closure of most of the mines in the coal fields is looming large,’ he said.
‘We are not able to shift the villagers because we are not getting rehabilitation sites,’ Mehra said.
The villagers, who had given up their lands, have been employed by the company and compensation packages paid to them, he said.
‘But unavailability of land for their rehabilitation has become a major trouble in shifting them,’ he said.
A senior district administrative official said the state government was aware of the problems.
‘We do not have enough government land in the nearby areas. We are trying to help them out with whatever we have,’ he said.
But Mehra said the problems in at least four mines were acute and required urgent measures.
