GOVERNMENT MISTRUST
ries. “Our land is enough to feed us, and if we are displaced, we will have to buy food,” says Budni Murmu, who has a family of 12. They sustain on 14 (10 is roughly 1 ha) where they grow paddy, pulses and vegetables. Three of the family members work as labourers and earn `3,000 a month which, Murmu says, is enough for the family. Animal husbandry is another traditional occupation and most families own lambs, cows and buffaloes that feed on what grows in the open. “The government will not rehabilitate our animals that help us survive when agriculture fails,” says Maynamoti Soren, another resident of Dewanganj. Each of the 18 villages have a
or sacred grove that forms an integral part of the cultural practices of the people. The forestland which falls under this project’s boundary consists of around 50,000 trees, including naturally occurring
and bamboo, mahogany, eucalyptus and acacia, and they all will be felled. “This is equivalent to half the tree cover a metropolitan city in India has on an average,” says Ajay Rawat, former chairperson of the forest history division at non-profit International Union of Forestry Research Organization in Vienna, Austria. “The deforestation will lower groundwater levels, and increase land erosion,” he adds.
In early February this year, the residents launched the "Birbhum Jomi, Jeebon, Jeebika o Prokriti Bachao Mahasabha" to pressurise the state to withdraw the coal project. On February 21, Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee proposed a new compensation package, reiterating that her government will not acquire land forcefully from the people. The government has set up a 10-member committee in November 2021 to supervise pre-mining activities and initiate confidencebuilding measures among residents. “We have received several applications from people who want to give their land for the project. So far, we have verified 350 of them,” says Kamal Chandra De, secretary of Birbhum zilla parishad.
Kunal Deb, an environmentalist working with the residents, alleges that the government is manufacturing the numbers. Kolkata-based activist Prasenjit Bose has filed an application under the Right To Information Act, 2005, on January 6, 2022, asking for basic information about the project, including details about the public hearings that the state government has conducted and the laws under which the land is being acquired.
Deb says though the compensation looks generous on paper, people have no faith in the government. “People displaced for the thermal power plant in Birbhum’s Bakreswar township are still protesting to receive compensation for two decades,” he says.
The compensation package for the coal project promises an assured job in police for one member in each displaced household. “Already 10,000 police personnel in the state are working on contract. A government that is not absorbing people already working on contract wants us to believe that we will be given permanent employment,” says Saha.