: At a public hearing held in the Neyveli Township on the Neyveli Lignite Corporation’s proposal to acquire land in the surrounding villages for restructuring its lignite mines, officials faced a volley of questions on Thursday.
The NLC, a Navaratna public sector undertaking, has proposed to acquire two land blocks, one measuring 457 hectares and another 382 ha for Mine-I and Mine-I A in the Vriddhachalam and Kurinjipadi blocks in Cuddalore district.
For both the projects, the public hearing was held on the Sri Veludayanpattu temple grounds in the Neyveli township. For Mine-I, land has to be acquired at Vadakku Vellur and Ammeri in the Vriddhachalam block and for Mine-I A, land has to be acquired in the Kurinjipadi block and parts of Vadakuthu and Thenkuthu villages.
A majority of probable land providers sought permanent jobs for their family members and monetary compensation four times the market rate prevailing at the time of acquisition. They pointed out that contrary to their expectations, the NLC was engaging their family members only as contract labourers. Though the NLC had agreed to regularise the contract workers on the court direction, it seemed to be a long-drawn-out process. Some of the villagers said that since they had to abandon their concrete dwelling units, they would be left shelterless.
Therefore, the NLC should take the responsibility of constructing buildings of the same size and provide alternative sites of the same measure. A section of the gathering wanted medical facilities and basic amenities such as drinking water supply improved in the surrounding villages.
District Collector S.Suresh Kumar, District Environmental Engineer Raja and NLC officials participated in the public hearing. They studiously noted down the demands of the people to forward them to the government.
It may be noted that Mine-I has the capacity to prospect 105 lakh tonnes of lignite a year to feed the Thermal Power Station-I and the Thermal Power Station-I expansion. However, since the ancient TPS-I is being phased out, about 65 lakh tonnes of lignite mined from Mine-I would be rendered surplus a year.
Hence, the lignite production in the mine has been tapered down to 40 lakh tonnes a year. With the 1,000-MW Neyveli New Power Plant getting ready, as a replacement to the obsolete TPS-I, there would be an additional requirement of lignite. Hence, there has arisen an absolute need to increase lignite production in Mine-IA from the present 30 lakh tonnes to 70 lakh tonnes a year. Therefore, to meet the increased lignite requirements, restructuring of both the mines has become inevitable. The NLC, as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility, has been earmarking considerable amount for improvement of facilities in the peripheral areas and imparting vocational skills among the villagers.
For the purpose it allocated Rs 14.26 crore during 2012-2013, and Rs 26.30 crore during 2013-2014.
