Korba: While Parliament remains stalled over the CAG report on coal block allocations, a land acquisition row threatens to disrupt production at India’s largest open cast coal mine. In fact, it exposes a deeper malaise that afflicts India’s coal sector, where private companies, according to the CAG, were given coal blocks for a pittance even as government coal companies sit on massive coal deposits. Spread over nearly 20 sq km, the Gevra mines in Chhattisgarh’s Korba district are the single largest source of power grade coal in India containing more than 10,000 million tonnes of reserves that alone can meet the country’s coal needs for more than a decade. Since production began in Gevra in 1981, more than 400 million tonnes of coal have been shoveled out of a gigantic pit, larger than any other open cast coal mine in Asia. But reserves in Gevra’s existing mining area are low and fresh land needs to be acquired urgently for expansion. In an environment assessment report, South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), the government company that runs the mines, estimated an additional 1,400 acres or 6 sq km of farmland would be required to expand capacity to 35 million tonnes per annum. A notification for land acquisition was issued early in 2001 but over the next decade, compensation rates were not finalized, until the last shovels of coal began to be scrapped from the existing mine area, and the company rushed to announce compensation rates in accordance with Chhattisgarh’s rehabilitation policy, which range from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per acre, depending on land fertility. But a sticking point remained: the question of jobs. “We want jobs for everyone who is losing land to the mines,” says Mohar Singh, a farmer in Pondi village, where ground awash with green paddy drops precipitously into a desolate valley emptied of coal. He adds, “When the company acquired part of the village in 1981, it gave jobs to every farmer who lost land, even if it was merely two decimals of land (100 decimals equal an acre).” “We want the same deal,” says 22-year-old Ravi Rathod. While SECL did not respond to email queries, officials said farmers’ demands cannot be met, not just because mechanization has shrunk mining jobs but also because the number of land owners in seven villages has bloated to nearly 4,000. Drawn by SECL’s company policy of one-job-per-displaced-farmer in the mid-80s, villagers fragmented their land into tiny holdings, distributed within families, and sometimes sold to outsiders. For instance, in Pondi village, 360 acres are held by 1,400 people, reducing the average size of land holding to just a quarter of an acre. As part of parent company Coal India’s latest policy, SECL said it can give one job per two acres, which means only 180 people in Pondi would be eligible for it. The rest would be given livelihood compensation of Rs 5 lakh per acre, which farmers dismiss as “paltry”. The sarpanch of the village, Saraswati Kanwar, said around 50 people have accepted the compensation package but the majority are opposed to it. Striking a more conciliatory note, Sujaan Singh, a retired government employee, says, “It’s partly our fault. We fragmented the village land by selling it to outsiders who are now taking away our jobs.” Sarpanch Saraswati Kanwar says villagers would agree on fewer jobs if original residents, and not outsiders, are preferred for the jobs. “But for that, the company must be willing to include us in the discussions, which it hasn’t,” she says. Activist Laxmi Chouhan points out that lack of consultation itself is a violation of the law, since the predominantly tribal villages come under the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act, which makes it mandatory for gram sabhas to be consulted during land acquisition. Documents obtained through RTI show this was not done. The slow pace of expansion in government mines was the primary reason cited for giving coal blocks to the private sector. But, in Chhattisgarh, this has resulted in forest-rich areas being opened up for mining, even as existing areas like Gevra remain mired in conflicts.