Villagers anxious over auctioning of Shravanapalli coal block

Ninety families in Shravanapalli will be displaced with the advent of an opencast mining project at the village, while 150 out of the total 350 families from Jenda Venkatapur were likely to be affected.

Mancherial: Villagers in Shravanapalli are worried over the auctioning of the Shravanapalli coal block, one of 67 blocks being auctioned by the Coal ministry from June 21, fearing that it could spell doom for many villages in Nennal mandal.

Ninety families in Shravanapalli will be displaced with the advent of an opencast mining project at the village, while 150 out of the total 350 families from Jenda Venkatapur were likely to be affected. Around 500 hectares of mango groves in Shravanapalli and neighbouring villages were also likely to bear the brunt of the coal mining project, which would provide around 1,000 jobs including 400 placements expected to be outsourced by locals.

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Locals of Shravanapalli and farmers, who have been opposing the coal mining project for nearly 20 years, are now worried a lot over the auctioning of the block. “Our lives will be thrown out of the gear if the mining project is commissioned by displacing the village. No quantum of compensation can match the loss we incur caused in the form of dislocation and losing livelihood,” Maloth Ramchandar, a mango farmer opined.

The Venkatapur, Metpalli, Chittapur, Aavadam, Mamidigattu and Narwayipet villages were also likely to be affected by the coal mining project at Shravanpalli. Around 1,200 households residing in these villages would have to inhale air to be polluted by dust generated from mining activity, they fear. A church in a sprawling 20 acres of plot is also in the list of structures to be demolished.

“Nennal mandal, one of the largest producers of mangoes in the country, will lose its sheen once the Shravanapalli coal block is established. The coal mining project will not only displace many families living in Shravanapalli and affect surrounding villages by polluting air, it will also result in destruction of forest cover as well,” Md Muneer, a senior scribe and analyst from Mandamarri observed.

According to officials of Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), the block is endowed with 94 million tonnes of coal. The life of the block is 33 years. A total of 1,936 hectares of land is going to be acquired to create the opencast mining project. As many as 1,058 hectares of land belongs to private persons, while 878 hectares of land is owned by the forest department.