Kolkata, March 5 -- The district administration of Birbhum handed over revised land deeds to 179 odd people associated with the Deocha Pachami coal block project at Muhammad Bazar.
The deed was handed over at a camp at Alinagar which was presided over by district magistrate of Birbhum, Bidhan Roy.
A district official said, till date, the district administration has handed over revised land deeds to 600 persons. There were some issues raised by them associated with their land and lost documents pertaining to their lands due to accident or untoward circumstances. The process of handing over such land deeds started some time back and will continue. The Land and Land Reforms department is conducting a survey to ascertain how many persons within the project area of Deocha Pachami do not possess proper land documents. Basalt mining in the Deocha-Pachami project, which is being dubbed Asia's second largest coal mine, commenced on February 6. The first major step in making the coal mine functional at Deocha-Pachami is basalt mining since the coal reserves lie beneath a thick basalt layer.
The mine has a reserve of 1,240 million tonnes of coal and 2,600 million tonnes of basalt.
During a meeting on Monday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee praised the Deocha-Pachami project and said that the government had provided jobs to those who had parted with their land.
Many have already given consent for taking their land for the project with the rehabilitation package announced by Banerjee eliciting spontaneous response. There will be huge employment from the local people once the project gets completed.
The state government had announced that a total of 3,400 acres of land would be acquired for the coal mining project. The compensation and rehabilitation package for this project was announced in 2021.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.