Despite opposition by the locals, Angul district administration held the Rehabilitation and Peripheral Development and Advisory Committee (RPDAC) meeting of Adani Group here on Monday. The company is developing Machhakata coal block at Chhenedipada which has been jointly allocated to the power companies of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The meeting was held here at a time when there is a guideline not to convene RPDAC meeting during the session of Assembly and Parliament. This coupled with the fact that local MP attended the meeting evoked large scale resentment among the people. Thousands of people from nine villages in Chhendipada, who have been opposing the coal mining in their area since the beginning, came to the local tehsil office on Monday and sat on a dharna since morning demanding cancellation of RPDAC meeting among others. Six platoons of police forces were deployed to prevent any untoward incident. Meanwhile, the RPDAC meeting was held for a brief time under the chairmanship of RDC (North) Pramod Kumar Meherdha in the presence of IG (North Central Range) POS Ranapise and SP Narasigh Bhol among others. According to a district officials, the committee decided to give compensation to the land losers as per the new Land Acquisition Act by Centre but could not arrive at a decision whether the new Act would be applicable to Adani Group here. In view of the demand, the committee also decided to include five village representatives in the RPDAC. The dharna was called off in the evening. Earlier, the villagers had ransacked the camp where the proposed public hearing for the mining was to take place. In the last RPDAC meting at Angul, large scale violence erupted when a pro-Adani group had a face-off with anti-Adani people.