KORAPUT: Tribals in Rayagada's Kashipur block have prepared an action plan that they will submit to Utkal Alumina International Limited (UAIL) and the district administration for development of villages affected by the factory. This plan will be the precondition to mining in their area.
The action plan was prepared on Sunday during a meeting attended by more than 2,000 tribals of five panchayats under the banner Baphlimali Anchalika Samiti (BAS) at Odri panchayat bordering Kalahandi district. "Depending on the needs of the villages, an action plan has been prepared and, for its fulfillment, it will be submitted both to the company and administration. "We will allow mining in our area if the company fufills our demands otherwise anti-mining campaign will be intensified," said president of the samiti Kesab Majhi.
According to the samiti, a village-level campaign was carried out in the area from August 24 to September 5 before preparing the action plan. Around 50 villages were covered and the basic needs of the villages were identified during it.
The tribals have demanded irrigation facilities, safe drinking water, pucca roads, establishemnt of model schools and technical institutions, opening up of hospitals and free treatment of patients at the company's hospital and planting fruit-bearing trees.
"If industrialization brings development, then let the company first develop the area in which it is coming up. For the last several years, the company has been cheating us in the name of development. It has done nothing noticeable for which we had not allowed the company to start mining. Now if the company wants to start mining then it has to fulfill our demands first," said tribal leader Bhagaban Majhi, who has been spearheading the anti-mining campaigning against UAIL for the past several years.
The UAIL has set up a 4.5 million tonne per annum bauxite mining plant at Baphlimali hills and a 1.5 million TPA alumina refinery in Kashipur block's Doragurah. According to BAP, 108 villages in nine panchayats of Kashipur block and three panchayats of Kalahandi district will be affected by the company's refinery plant and mining.
While a senior company official said that UAIL was ready to cooperate with the villages and will do the needful within its limitation, when contacted Rayagada collector Sasi Bhusan Padhi said, "Soon, a meeting of the rehabilitation and peripheral development advisory committee would be called to look into the demands of the people."
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