Villagers call off stir after MCL assurance

Odisha Channel Bureau Angul, July: After a protracted tug of war, Mahanadi Coalfield Limited (MCL) finally gave in to the demands of the agitating villagers Hensmul at Talcher by agreeing to revoke the termination orders of 126 villagers by July 10.“MCL authorities agreed to revoke the dismissal of these villagers in a meeting here and after that assurance, the villagers have ended the ongoing dharna at the mine site from today,” said Talcher Sub-Collector Saroj Samal on Monday.He said after the withdrawal of the order by MCL there will be a project level advisory meeting soon to finalise one of two resettlement sites now available for the villagers to shift.These two sites are near Balanda collage and Baghmara.The meeting was attended among others the villagers and MCL Director J.P.Singh.With this decision, the proposed mines bandh stir by villagers has been avoided.The villagers first went to paralyse the two mega mines at Talcher for two days from June 27 and then resorted to dharna on the request by the local state administration who gave assurance to sort out matter with MCL authorities.These two mines Ananta and Bhubaneswari together produce nearly one lakh tonne of coal per day.It amounts to nearly one-third daily output by the coal company.This was the worry for MCL who is hard-pressed by the coal ministry to raise the output keeping in view of the mounting coal shortage at power plants in the country.It may be noted that both the MCL and villagers stuck to their stand in the series of meetings these held after the company dismissed these employees fuelling deep rooted resentment among the villagers of Hensmul.The villagers demanded that the company should revoke the order first while the MCL insisted that the villagers should vacate the acquired homestead land before they consider the termination.This deadlock continued till Sunday meeting in which MCL agreed to demands by villagers.