India Indigenous People Coal
Villagers resist further displacement as Adani’s Bijahan coal project looms
Forests and villages that are home to people displaced by other industrial projects are earmarked for demolition to make way for Adani’s proposed Bijahan coal mine. In addition to these newer arrivals are indigenous occupants who have never been granted rights over the land that they have been tending for decades. Hence, they will not be compensated when the land is taken over for Adani’s mine. These are some of the tragic stories associated with the Adani Group’s Bijahan coal project.
Basic facts and figures
- Name of project: Bijahan coal-mining project
- Location: Hemgir, Sundargarh, state of Odisha
- Name of owner: Mahanadi Mines & Minerals Private Limited (an Adani Group subsidiary)
- Coal reserves: 327 million tons
- Peak output: 5.26 million tons per annum
- Population affected: 4 villages affected (detailed R&R study not yet conducted)
- Mining method: Open-cast
- Cost: Rs 2600 crore (US $310 million)
- Current status: Awaiting land acquisition, environmental clearance process underway.
Bijahan (Odisha, India): On a sunny morning in Bhograkachhar, Puni Amaat, an old tribal woman, found solace in a quiet alcove on the porch of her timeworn home. The dilapidated house, with the plaster of its walls peeling off, held countless memories. The precincts of the entrance to the house were impeccably clean. Puni sat with a baby goat nestled in her lap, its soft bleats reverberating in the morning’s calmness. She gently rocked the goat, whispering tenderly into its ears. The animal tugged playfully with the loose end of Puni’s dark green headscarf.
Puni’s hearing was noticeably diminished: she frequently needed questions repeated. Her memory, too, was failing her. She could not remember her exact age but seemed to be in her early 80s. Her responses to my queries, which she tried to convey in her own dialect, were marked by long pauses and regular drifts into confusion. Her movements were slow. Her skin, deeply ruddy and weathered, bore the marks of a life lived with nature. Her arms, tattooed with tribal motifs, demonstrated the active life that she must have lived to nurture her family in this hamlet within the forested area of Bijahan. Her whole appearance spoke of years spent under the open sky, harvesting the bounty of the land that surrounded her village. A gentle smile graced her face. It reminded me of my granduncle, who endured Parkinson’s disease with a similar unwavering calm until his death, the serene smile more a reflection of his failing memory than of happiness.
Dani Amaat, her husband, mirrored the rugged resilience of Puni. When we met him, he was sitting on the ground across the dirt track that meandered past their home, his frail, weather-beaten frame a testament to decades of hardship. He seemed to be in his mid-80s. Dark pockmarks on his bare chest and arms were the result of a severe childhood bout of smallpox. Dani’s memories stretched back nearly 70 years to when he migrated from the neighboring state of Chhattisgarh (well before it was carved out as a separate province from the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh), seeking a new start with better opportunities in Odisha.
‘We used to live a very difficult life in our ancestral village in Lailunga in Chhattisgarh,’ Dani began slowly, adding, ‘There was hardly any livelihood. My offspring did not survive. We thought it wise to move to a new place for a new beginning. The forests in this area, where we ultimately settled, offered abundant resources for free. We also took up farming in minor patches in clearings within the forest. Our lives flourished.’
Together, Puni and Dani spend their lives drawing sustenance from the land, farming and gathering minor resources from the forest. Trees such as Chaar (Cuddapah Almond), Mahua (a tree whose buds are collected to ferment a heady liquor) and Tendu (its leaves are used to roll traditional Indian cigars called beedis while it also produces an edible fruit) provide resources that can be sustainably used. There are clusters of wild bamboo, mango trees and dozens of other varieties of medicinal trees, plants and herbs.
The elderly couple’s four sons initially followed in their footsteps, relying on these natural resources for their livelihoods. However, with the rapid advance of industrial projects and mining in this region, these young men have abandoned their ancestral practices. They work as daily wage laborers in nearby construction sites and mines. The family obtains free foodgrains from the Odisha state government. Puni and Amaat have no inkling that their village and the forests around it will be obliterated for Adani’s Bijahan coal mine.
(Story continues below)
Bhograkachhar, in Hemgir tehsil (an administrative unit) of Odisha’s Sundargarh district bordering Chhattisgarh, is one of the four villages that will be heavily impacted by the proposed Bijahan coal mine. The Adani Group plans to pump Rs 2600 crores (US $310 million) into the project. An Adani subsidiary, Mahanadi Mines & Minerals Private Limited, made the winning bid in an auction for this coal block conducted in March 2022 by the Modi government. The project will clear 608.64 hectares of pristine forestland. The block contains geological reserves of 327 million tons of coal. Three other villages – Bijahan, Jharpalam and Girisima – of Hemgir will also be affected by the project. Initial estimates indicate roughly 450 families will be displaced. Another 376 families will be impacted in varying degrees through loss of land or livelihood. The majority of those affected will be tribal households: Sundargarh has a preponderance of tribal people and, as such, is classified as a Schedule V district under the Constitution of India where special provisions in governance and land-takeover apply.
Bhograkachhar alone is home to around 75 tribal families, who predominantly belong to the Kharia community, an ethnic group from central India. The village is a poignant symbol of the dissonance between legislative assurances and the stark reality faced by indigenous people. Despite their deep connection to land which they have tended for decades, Puni and the other villagers have been denied the statutory rights they were promised under the landmark Forest Rights Act of 2006.
Most people we interviewed said they were never granted rights over forest land that they have been tilling for decades. Hence, they will not be compensated when the land is taken over for Adani’s mine.
‘Our family was granted four decimals of land for constructing a dwelling unit under a scheme of the central government,’ said Sahen Amaat (26). ‘We were never granted forest rights. Only four households in the entire village have ever been granted forest rights.’
Applications under the Right to Information Act, 2005 were filed by this correspondent with the office of the District Magistrate of Sundargarh and the office of the Integrated Tribal Development Agency in Sundargarh seeking details of forest rights granted in the four project-affected villages. These applications were rejected a month later for supposedly inadequate proof of identity accompanying the letters. Fresh applications have been filed and responses are awaited.
This situation of families in Bhograkachhar is replicated in the neighboring village of Jharpalam, also earmarked for demolition. Here, local people who have assembled outside a doomed temple say their applications for rights over forest land have been pending for years. The temple contains idols of Lord Jagannath, his brother Balbhadra and their sister Subhadra, the presiding deities of Odisha, and is a prominent place of worship in the region. Different areas of Jharpalam have been identified for takeover for coal projects belonging to the Adani Group, to the multibillion-dollar Vedanta Group, or to the public-sector mining corporation of the western Indian state of Gujarat.
‘Almost all households in Jharpalam are dependent on forest resources,’ said Ghanashyam Pradhan (55) of Jharpalam. ‘The Odisha government has imposed penalties upon individual households from time to time, in an age-old practice, against using state-owned forest land for private purposes. We have receipts of penalties that we have paid in the past several decades. However, despite filing applications, statutory rights were never granted over the forest-land parcels after the Forest Rights Act came into force.’
Local communities claim officials have never provided clarity about the operational and proposed mining projects.
‘We never know who is chopping trees, digging land or demolishing public properties,’ Bihari Kalu, a 70-year-old man, told this correspondent. ‘There are multiple entities with mining projects in the region. They keep on passing the buck amongst themselves.’
In Bhograkachhar, many families find themselves facing displacement for a second time. Not only tribal households but also families belonging to other castes face this predicament. For instance, the household of Deepak Deheri (28) carries a legacy of displacement that stretches back several decades. In the mid-1950s, Deepak’s grandparents were forced to leave their ancestral home in Amapalli village, which lies in the district of Jharsuguda. The government, in its effort to develop the Hirakud Multipurpose hydroelectric scheme, one of the shining projects of a newly independent India, compensated them with the meager sum of Rs 1300 for their ancestral land and house (only US $15 in today’s terms – obviously worth much more in the 1950s, but still a tiny amount for the loss of a farm). The family, accepting this compensation, relocated to Bhograkachhar to make a fresh start.
As the decades passed, the family grew. Today, the household has at least 30 members who are 18 or older. The family faces daunting uncertainty. They once again face the loss of their house and land; the prospect of securing employment is bleak. The Deheri family stands on the precipice of another upheaval, their hopes jeopardised by forces beyond their control.
‘When the public hearing for the environmental approval of the project was held, we voiced our concerns,’ Deheri told this correspondent. ‘These concerns might have been noted in the register of grievances that the officials had brought along with them. But these grievances will remain on paper forever.’
In an earlier article, AdaniWatch highlighted how local communities had complained about the way the state government went ahead with the public hearing on 1 December 2023 at very short notice, contravening the rules. The Odisha high court sent the project proponent and the state government back to the drawing board regarding mandatory consultations with tribal villagers. These consultations had yet to take place when this correspondent visited Bijahan in the last week of April 2024.
In the meantime, it has been alleged that government officials embarked on a tree-enumeration exercise in Bhograkachhar village on 24 August, without any communication with local communities. The counting was allegedly being undertaken in forest land that has been identified for clearing for the Bijahan mine.
'We objected to the exercise because prior consent of local communities for clearing forest land has not been obtained yet as per law. We have spoken to government authorities about the pending community consultations [Gram Sabha]. We have been assured that these consultations will take place. However, no fixed date has been given for it,' a source told this correspondent.
Households staring at the prospect of being robbed of their livelihoods for a second time remain in a state of anxiety, their minds occupied with what-ifs and the haunting question of how they would cope should their worst fears come to pass.
Tebha Pradhan, a 55-year-old woman, who settled in Bijahan village 12 years ago, is one of these facing displacement for a second time if the Adani project takes shape. Before settling in Bijahan, she and her family lived in a neighboring village called Jamkhani where they were dependent on roughly 1.5 ha of land and forest for their livelihood. The family grew paddy and seasonal vegetables. But the government never bestowed them the statutory forest rights in accordance with law. When land and forests were taken over for the Jamkhani coal mine of the Vedanta Group, her family was not compensated for their 1.5 hectares, their only source of livelihood.
‘We were provided compensation only for the house in which we used to live at the time of land takeover for the Jamkhani project,’ said Pradhan. ‘We never went to the resettlement colony because of the poor quality of construction of the houses there. With the compensation money, we bought four decimals of land in Bijahan, where we built a new house for ourselves’.
Local people told me there are many households which decided to forego their entitlements to houses in the resettlement colony owing to poor construction work. They instead chose to settle in nearby villages, only to now face the prospect of being uprooted again.
The symbiotic relationship between local communities and the forests surrounding them is a vivid testament to a deeply-rooted connection. For generations, these communities have woven their lives intricately with the forests, finding harmony and sustenance in the abundant resources that envelope their homes. Traditional knowledge about the forest is passed down through generations. Elders teach the younger ones the secrets of the forest – the best times to harvest, the signs of seasonal changes, and the uses of various plants.
On the verandah of a typical house in Jharpalam, 40-year-old Gouranga Bhuyr went about his work, knitting ropes from fronds of leaves, as his elderly father watched on. These biodegradable ropes will be used to hold together bundles of Tendu leaves that the family will collect from the forests for sale.
‘The abundance of these forests is overwhelming,’ said Bhuyr. ‘It has sustained generations of human beings and will continue to do so if left undisturbed. On the other hand, a coal mine will generate a handful of jobs and degrade the ecology. Once the coal is taken out and there are no forests left, this region will be unfit for human habitation.’
(This ground report is based on a field visit conducted in April-May 2024)
