In Chilika Daad alone there are 600 families that have been displaced several times by these different projects. The residents were given land deeds but only with the right to live. They can’t sell the land or take loan against it. Now threatened by the huge overburden of the mines barely 50 metres away from the village, unemployment, high levels of pollution and mining blasts, villagers do not have a choice but to continue to bear with the misery.
The fact finding team recommends a moratorium on all mining activities in the forest areas of Singrauli until coal availability in other areas and alternative energy solutions are not assessed. The team also recommends comprehensive human rights assessment of all mining and industrial operations and action on the ground to address the grievances of the people. The team felt that the issue of livelihood of affected communities has remained fundamentally unanswered in Singrauli for decades. On this front, it recommended that the administration should look at giving people a genuine option of maintaining their earlier livelihoods by introducing a land-based compensation system, through which agricultural land acquired is replaced by agricultural land elsewhere.
