Coal minister chairs Par panel's meet to discuss way ahead for Jharia Master Plan

JRDA under the state government has taken up the construction of 18,352 houses, out of which 6,352 are completed and the rest will be completed by August 2022.JRDA has prepared a revised rehabilitation proposal, which the state government is examining.


PTI | New Delhi | Updated: 27-10-2021 21:41 IST | Created: 27-10-2021 21:41 IST
Coal minister chairs Par panel's meet to discuss way ahead for Jharia Master Plan
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Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi on Wednesday chaired a meeting of the ministry's Parliamentary Consultative Committee to discuss the way ahead for the Jharia Master Plan.

Members of Parliament participated in the consultative committee meeting.

During the presentation, it was informed that due to unscientific mining in the pre-nationalisation period, mining areas in the Jharia coalfield in Jharkhand have faced problems of fire and subsidence. Now, these areas fall in the leasehold regions of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL), a Coal India arm.

''As an outcome of WP(C) No. 381/97 filed by late Haradhan Roy, Ex-MP in 1997 in the...Supreme Court of India, a master plan for dealing with fire, subsidence and rehabilitation in Jharia was approved on August 12, 2009, by the Government of India with the implementation period of 10 years and the pre-implementation period of two years.

''The implementation period ended in August 2021,'' the coal ministry said in a statement.

As a result of fire control measures taken by BCCL, the fire area is continuously decreasing. Currently, as per the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) surveys in 2021, fire sites have been reduced to 18 sites covering 1.8 sq km from the initial 70 sites covering an area of 17.32 sq km.

Currently, 15 sites are economically viable, wherein work related to the digging of fire has been awarded and at two sites, BCCL's board has recommended the viability gap funding of Rs 763 crore from the revised master plan.

At four sites, blanketing will be done to cover the fire sites to extinguish the fire.

Regarding rehabilitation, there are 595 sites wherein BCCL is responsible for taking action to shift its staff from BCCL houses. BCCL has undertaken the construction of 15,852 houses and currently, about 3,852 families are to be shifted to the new houses.

BCCL has proposed 8,000 houses to be utilised by the Jharia Rehabilitation and Development Authority (JRDA) for non-BCCL families.

In the case of rehabilitation of non-BCCL families, there has been a substantial increase in the number of encroachers as of 2019 against the cut-off date provision of 2004.

The state government is responsible for shifting legal and non-legal title holders. JRDA under the state government has taken up the construction of 18,352 houses, out of which 6,352 are completed and the rest will be completed by August 2022.

JRDA has prepared a revised rehabilitation proposal, which the state government is examining. In the meantime, the coal ministry has constituted a committee to examine the issue in detail and submit a report on the way ahead.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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