Uncertainty grips Tata’s K’jhar mining project

Uncertainty grips the fate of an expansion project of Tata's Kahandbandh iron and manganese mines after irate locals stalled construction of a river water intake pump house at Chormalda near Joda under the Rugudi police station.

Sources reveals that  in the year 2011, Tata Steel had made an application to the State Water Resources Department for drawing water from the Kundranal which is otherwise known the Sona river for its proposed   expansion of Khandbandh  iron and manganese mines.

 The WR Department, after considering the application, accorded approval to the company to construct an embankment to draw 7.8 cusecs surface water from the river Sona.

Accordingly, construction work was started by the company from December 30, 2017. And everything was going on smoothly but a dispute started when on April 29, a group of people went to the project and threatened to stop the work alleging that if the intake pump house is completed, then Sona river will dry up and local people will be affected.

Again on May 14, on the same ground, the work was totally stalled by the agitating people by damaging and setting fire to the machines being used in the construction site.

Source close to Tata Steel revealed that there is nothing illegal in the project and rubbished the allegation that the Sona river will dry up once the pump house gets operational. Rather, the company is constructing a water harvesting structure in its plant site for the purpose of storing water to be used in the mines during the lean period, it claimed.

Further, sources close to the WR Department revealed that Kundranal / Sona river being a tributary of the river Baitarani, there will be back pressure of water after the completion of Kanpur project which is going to be completed very soon.  So there is no reason to be panicky as there will be no shortage of water in future and people should operate in the construction of the intake pump house.

Contacted, local leader Kushsa Apat said that it was wrong on the part of some people having vested interest to oppose the project. If the mining project is completed, many locals will be employed and there will be development in the area.

Former Joda BJP president Ranjit Mahakud said, "We are not opposing the water intake project but our demand is that the company should give priority to the local people in employment and take up peripheral work in the area.”