Massive Tree Felling Begins for Adani-Operated Coal Mine in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh

Bengaluru: At least 5,000 trees were cut on June 26 and 27 in the villages of Mudagaon and Saraitola in Tamnar tehsil in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district as part of a massive tree felling operation to set up a coal mine in the Gare Palma Sector II coal block, activists on the ground told The Wire.

The mine will be operated by the Adani Group for the Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Limited (MAHAGENCO).

Though the mine is estimated to yield at least 655 million metric tonnes of coal, 14 villages will be affected directly by the project and around 2,584 hectares of land are to be acquired for it.

Of this, nearly 215 hectares is forest land that will be razed clean of trees and any other vegetation.

Six other coal mines are already in operation in the area, and four more are in the works.

Local police illegally detained seven people for a day on June 26, sources on the ground told The Wire. They added that at least 2,000 police and security personnel were deployed on June 26 to oversee the tree felling; the operation continued on June 27 as well in the villages of Mudagaon and Saraitola.

The deforestation is ongoing even as residents have consistently held protests, and filed petitions against the project with linked cases being heard in both the Chhattisgarh high court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT), India’s apex green court.

Illegal detention, tree felling

Tree felling in the villages of Mudagaon and Saraitola began on the morning of June 26, under heavy police deployment according to local sources.

“This morning, June 26, the police and district administration detained affected villagers, local public representatives and environmental activists who were protesting against deforestation for coal mining in Mudagaon, Raigarh district, Chhattisgarh,” the Chhattisgarh Association for Justice and Equality (CAJE), a rights organisation operating in the area, said in a statement.

Police personnel, forest department officials and employees of Adani Power surrounded the forest and began cutting down trees, CAJE said in the statement.

Workers cut down forest trees in Mudagaon and Saraitola villages on June 26.

Police detained seven people including local Congress MLA Vidyavati Sidar, writer and activist Rinchin, as well as three women who were on their way to collect mahua flowers and join the protest, per the statement. They were let off at the end of the day. Their detention was illegal, said Shreya Khemani, a member of CAJE.

“The detained people were given no reason for their detention, and were taken to a local range office and detained there for the whole day,” she told The Wire.

Sources on the ground told The Wire that the tree felling continued on June 27 in the villages of Mudagaon and Saraitola, and that workers cleared the lumber. Tall, foliage-filled trees came crashing down under chainsaws before the eyes of at least 1,000 people gathered at the site.

Some women, meanwhile, planted forest tree saplings right next to the fallen trees.

Raigarh's superintendent of police could not be contacted over phone when The Wire tried to speak with him.

The Gare Palma Sector II coal mine

The Ministry of Coal allocated the Gare Palma Sector II coal mine in Raigarh district in Chhattisgarh to MAHAGENCO in 2015. The mine will yield an estimated 655.153 million metric tonnes of coal.

This coal will meet the fossil fuel demands of three thermal power plants in Maharashtra, according to MAHAGENCO: the 1,000 megawatt (MW) Chandrapur Thermal Power Station, the 1,980 MW Koradi Thermal Power Station and the 1,000 MW Parli Thermal Power Station located in the districts of Chandrapur, Nagpur and Beed.

Both open cast mining – which is notorious for the pollution it can cause – and underground mining are envisaged as part of the mining methodology.

Police personnel oversee the tree-felling in Raigarh's Tamnar.

The project which will cost around Rs 7,642 crore will directly affect 14 villages in the district: Tihli Rampur, Kunjemura, Gare, Saraitola, Mudagaon, Radopali, Pata, Chitwahi, Dholnara, JhinkaBahal, Dolesara, Bhalumura, Sarasmal and Libra. According to an estimate by MAHAGENCO, nearly 1,700 families will be displaced.

The Adani Group is the Mine Developer and Operator of MAHAGENCO’s Gare Palma Sector II coal mining project.

In all, a total of 2,583.487 hectares of land are proposed to be acquired for the coal mining project. This includes 214.869 hectares of forest land.

According to a cost-benefit analysis by MAHAGENCO, the ecosystem service losses that will be brought about by the diversion of forests will be worth Rs 15.22 crore.

However, for local communities, the services that these forests provide are not tangible: they do not want to lose them because they view them as their ancestral lands and a resource they bank on for their livelihoods.

Local communities and activists have been protesting against the project since 2017, primarily for the loss of forests that it will involve.

According to Rinchin, a writer and activist who has been protesting against the deforestation along with the local communities and was also among the seven detained on June 26, nearly half of the forest land that will be taken for the project is a community forest that comes under the gram sabha of Mudagaon (consisting of both the Mudagaon and Saraitola villages).

As per the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (also called the Forest Rights Act), a community forest refers to “customary common forest land within the traditional or customary boundaries of the village or seasonal use of landscape in the case of pastoral communities, including reserved forests, protected forests and protected areas such as sanctuaries and national parks to which the community had traditional access”.

Per this Act, communities have the “right to protect, regenerate or conserve or manage any community forest resource which they have been traditionally protecting and conserving for sustainable use”.

“The forest clearance for the project has also been given fraudulently wherein no NOC [No Objection Certificate] under the Forest Rights Act have been obtained from the 14 affected villages,” Rinchin told The Wire.

Villagers gather at the site of tree felling in Mudagaon on June 27.

Clearance cancelled, but given again

On January 15, 2024, the NGT quashed the environment clearance afforded by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to MAHAGENCO in July 2022. The detailed, 209-page judgment cited several concerns.

The NGT noted that the Union environment ministry’s Expert Appraisal Committee meeting in September 2020 claimed that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)'s health assessment of people living in Tamnar block was yet to be completed, when it had already been submitted in February 2020.

“This shows non-application of mind and perversity on the part of EAC,” the NGT order said. 

The report noted that:

“We, therefore, hold that there is non-application of mind on the part of EAC as well as MOEF&CC by observing that ICMR report in respect of health assessment for the area in question in respect whereto, mining operation has been allotted to proponent, has not been examined though it constituted a relevant material on the subject and, therefore, the decision taken by the authorities resulting in grant of prior EC, is vitiated in law.”

The NGT order also noted – taking into account several aspects including the slope of the terrain, the operations of open cast mines which would also be used in the mining process, and the drainage of surface water run-off into the River Kelo, which was an “important tributary” of the Mahanadi river – that the “hydrology aspect including River Kelo has not been undertaken by Competent Authority [the MoEFCC] while granting EC” to the project proponents.

Prime among the concerns flagged by the NGT was the fact that peoples’ protest against the project at the public hearing (conducted in September 2019) was not recorded in the proceedings, and that at least 1,000 people were denied entry to the site of the public hearing.

The NGT order said that it had found that the “public hearing has not been conducted in accordance with law, satisfying the words and spirit of the requirement of public consultation and proceedings are such so as to deprive the affected people fair, impartial, unbiased and valid public hearing/public consultation”.

But the Union environment ministry accorded a new environmental clearance to MAHAGENCO in August last year – just seven months after the NGT cancelled it in January – using the same public hearing that the NGT had raised concerns about, reported Newslaundry.

Following the new environment clearance, petitioners on the NGT case, including Rinchin, have appealed to the NGT again. The case is pending before the green court.

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