NEW DELHI: India’s state-controlled coal firm routinely violates the rights of local communities in the rush to open new mines to meet the country’s growing demand for power, Amnesty International said Wednesday. A report from the human rights group said Coal India, the world’s largest coal producer, had failed to consult the indigenous communities living near mines in central and eastern India on acquiring the land, or the environmental impact.
In some cases, it found, local communities did not even know that their land was being acquired for mining purposes until it happened. “Both the company and central and state governments don’t seem to care to speak or listen to vulnerable Adivasi (indigenous) communities whose lands are acquired and forests destroyed for coal mining,” said Aakar Patel, head of Amnesty International India. India’s indigenous communities form more than eight percent of the country’s 1.2 billion people, according to the latest census of 2011. Many are illiterate and live in extreme poverty, relying on the land for food.
The report said the central government had acquired land in all three Coal India mines its investigators examined, without directly informing affected families, or consulting them about their resettlement. One interviewee said he only discovered the land was being acquired after the deal was signed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing government is seeking to double coal production by 2020 to one billion tonnes annually to meet the needs of its burgeoning economy.Modi, who stormed to power in 2014, wants to fulfil an election promise to end crippling blackouts and bring power to more than 300 million Indians living without electricity.
India sits on the world’s fifth largest coal reserves and already relies on coal for 60 percent of its power. Activists have accused Modi’s government of watering down environmental rules after it allowed polluting industries to operate closer to national parks, and said small coal miners could expand production by 50 percent without seeking public approval.The Amnesty report was based on interviews with 124 affected people, government officials, Coal India representatives and local journalists, activists and lawyers between January 2014 and February 2016.