NCST move to return land from Rourkela Steel Plant to Oraon tribals

NEW DELHI: The tribal community of Oraon displaced due to Rourkela Steel Plant has come up with a small request before the National Commission of Scheduled Tribes (NCST) - give them land for building their sarna sthal or their traditional place of performing rituals. The NCST has decided to rap the Orissa government and the Rourkela Steel Plant to give tribal communities five acres of land at a token amount of Re 1 for the community to set up their place of worship.

The directive is based on the basic principle that customs and traditions are closely interlinked with tribal rights and their indigenousness and the state should be able to preserve it. The Commission had recently visited Rourkela. The tribal communities approached the Commission both verbally and in writing requesting for a sarna sthal.

However, when the NCST initially approached the Rourkela Steel Plant, it was told that the land has already been acquired and hence cannot be returned. "The Rourkela Steel Plant said there was no policy of returning lands and that if they had to give land to the tribals, the community will have to buy this land. The current price of each acre of land is over Rs 6 crore which would mean the tribals would need to pay over Rs 30 crore to get their place of worship. We looked at the agreement signed a few years back and found that there was a clause that in case of something important or critical, the state government can take back land and determine the compensation cost of the land," said Raghav Chandra, secretary, NCST.

The Commission will direct the Rourkela steel plant and the state government to invoke this clause of the agreement signed between them to restore the land for the tribals.

The NCST directive also makes a reference to the Supreme Court's 2013 order that tribals would decide on their religious and worship rights over Niyamgiri hills in Vedanta's bauxite mining case. However, this case is different as the land was already acquired. During the NCST's visit, the Commission members visited the makeshift sarna sthal where they offered prayers and the rituals were performed under the saal trees.