One more Bill to accelerate privatization of coal mining

Shri Nathulal Pande, General Secretary, Koyla Mazdoor Sabha and President, Hind Khadan Mazdoor Federation

The Indian government is pushing for an amendment to the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act 1957 by proposing The Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Amendment Bill 2021. The sole purpose of the proposed Bill is to facilitate land acquisition of the coal reserves and to hand them over to the private companies. The proposed bill will further accelerate the privatization of coal mining.

The new amendment bill will bring about three important changes. First, the central government shall be responsible for land acquisition after which the land and mining rights would be passed on to the states. The state governments can then lease the acquired land or coal deposits to any private company. The second major change is concerning the use of acquired land. The private players shall be free to use the land for any activity they find profitable and not necessarily engage in coal production. The 1957 Act did not allow this and restricted the use of land for mining and extraction of coal only. The amendment also includes provisions for increasing the limits on the lease of acquired land.

The Bill will allow acquisition of the thousands of hectares of land that the public sector undertakings like the Coal India, NTPC, Railways and Defence establishments have. It will allow private companies to take over the huge land reserves of Coal India Limited, a public sector company which contributes more than 72% to India’s energy needs.

The private companies want to close down some of the old coal mines and use the land and infrastructure for putting up renewable energy plants. This law will facilitate privatization of all the coal reserve holdings of the public sector undertakings and allowing the private companies to acquire and loot the valuable land resources.

Big private companies (ReNew Power, Greenko, Adani Green, Tata Power, ACME, SB Energy, Azure Power, Sembcorp Green Infra and Hero Future Energies) that dominate the renewable energy sector have been eyeing the huge land reserves owned by Coal India Ltd. for a long time now.

The proposed amendment is a part of the series of steps taken for privatization of the coal mining sector.

In January 2018 the Coking Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act, 1972 and the Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act, 1973 were repealed by the Repealing and Amending (Second) Act, 2017.
On 20 February 2018, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) permitted private firms to enter the commercial coal mining industry in India.
On 28 August 2019, the Union Cabinet approved 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) in coal mining.
On 18 June 2020, the Prime Minister announced the auction of 41 coal mining blocks for commercial mining to private capitalists.
In November 2020, the government opened the coal mines to commercial mining through the auction of coal blocks.

To ensure successful auctioning of the coal mines and guarantee profits to the private companies, amendments were made to the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) – MMDR Act 1957 and The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) – CMSP Act 2015 in January 2020.

Under the MMDR Act of 1957 there was a condition that the mining companies have to necessarily restore the land to its former condition after the completion of mining. This condition has been removed. Now the private companies acquiring the coal reserves shall be free to exploit the coal mines as per their will.

The current amendments to The Coal Bearing Areas Act of 1957 will further exempt the private coal mining companies from the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 (LARR Act 2013). As per the LARR Act 2013, the companies acquiring public land for commercial purposes had to compensate the people settled on that land at the rate of at least four times the market value of the land being acquired. This is blatant loot and plunder of people’s resources, facilitated by the government to ensure maximum profits to the private players. The amendment is being implemented at the expense of the interests and livelihood of the people who are living in these areas.

Earlier this exemption from LARR 2013 was available only to public sector companies, for example, Coal India, as the produce from mining was restricted for public use. In fact, the Coal Bearing Areas Act 1957 (passed during the colonial times) gave the government the right to acquire land forcibly from private owners for public use.

Further, the amendments also enable the central government to override the will of the people and the decision-making power of the Gram Panchayats and Gram Sabhas. The government can forcibly grab people’s land and displace them without taking any form of consent from the people or their Gram Sabhas. There is no reference to the PESA act (Panchayat Extension to the Scheduled Area Act, 1996) and the Forest Rights Act, 2006. This combined with the LARR Act 2013 exemption would effectively mean that lives of the people living in those areas will be completely destroyed.

The proposed amendments also allow mining of lignite (low-grade coal minerals) along with coal. This means that larger parts of Adivasi and forest land shall be handed over to the private owners for mining. Neither the government, nor the private company shall be accountable to people living in those areas for the loss of livelihood, rehabilitation, and fair compensation.

The proposed amendments give a free hand to private Indian and foreign companies, with or without any prior experience in coal mining or any other minerals, to loot the public coal reserves for private gains. The companies which do not necessarily produce coal can also participate in the coal/lignite block auctions.

Coal mining was nationalized by the Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act 1973, to meet the increasing demand of energy for the country. On the contrary, now with the privatization of the coal mining sector, and the amendments carried out and proposed, the private companies engaged in mining coal from these lands shall be free to use the land in a way to maximize profits, either by producing coal and selling it at profitable rates, or by using it for various industries like steel, cement and power generation, or by performing any other activity which is not even remotely related to coal mining/production. This Bill will ensure maximum profits to the private players at the expense of livelihood of the people who are living in these areas.

The coal workers have been militantly fighting against the government’s agenda of privatization of the coal mining. In July 2020, a three-day strike was organized by the coal workers which witnessed participation of hundreds of workers. The massive strike was successful in bringing the coal production to a halt. In August 2020, the workers of Coal India Ltd (CIL) and Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. (SCCL) struck work again and over five lakh of them participated in the protest action.

The coal workers have been fighting tirelessly against the government’s agenda to privatize coal mining. Their demand is immediate withdrawal of the decision to start commercial mining of coal and an immediate halt to the privatization of coal mining through the sale of shares of CIL.

Coal and land are two very valuable resources which belong to the people of our nation. Looting them for private gains should not be allowed. Along with coal workers and people living in those areas, it is the need of the hour for workers from across sectors to come together and join the fight against coal mining or any form of privatization. Because “An Attack on One is an Attack on All”.