The NTPC officials failed again on Monday in their attempt to start mining work in Chattibariatu coal mines due to the protest of the villagers affected by the mining project.
Last week, the thermal power major had tried to start their work at Chattibariatu with a Bhoomi pujan programme, but the protesting villagers didn’t sallow them to start the work.
The officials on Monday reached Chattibariatu coal mining site with tools and machines to clear the bushes and other hurdles above the ground on the site. As the team reached Chatar village and started cleaning work, the members of displaced villagers committee reached there with posters and banners and stopped the labourers engaged in the work. Due to this, the NTPC officials were forced to stop the work.
Later GM NTPC coal mines T Gopalakrishna talked with the members of displaced villagers committee and announced that soon a meeting will be held in which officials of NTPC, office bearers of the committee and representatives of district administration will be present. He assured the villagers that the company will start work only after that meeting. He said that in first week of December this meeting will take place.
Tripartite meeting before starting the work is the main demand of displaced villagers committee. The aim of the committee is to arrive at some important written agreement with the NTPC officials in that meeting in the presence of district administration representative.
Office bearers of the displaced villagers committee Manoj Kumar Gupta, Prem Ranjan Paswan, Kunal Kishore Dubey, Arif Ansari, Baleshwar Mahto, Padum Sao, Naresh Nayak and others said that at the time of taking their land NTPC had made many promises like it has made with the displaced of Pakri-Barwadih displaced committee, but later many promises were not fulfilled by the incumbent officials of NTPC there. So this time we want a tripartite meeting to get a written agreement with NTPC officials regarding the promises that were made in presence of district administrations representatives to avoid any clash in future.