Raising alarm over more than 30 power plants being set up in one district alone, BJP MP Dilip Singh Judeo recently dispatched a letter to Jairam Ramesh, stating, "Janjgir Champa is the only district in the state which has 75 percent irrigation cover and extremely fertile double crop land. According to the norms of the environmental ministry, power plants should not be set up on prime farmland since they cannot generate enough jobs for those uprooted from a prosperous agrarian economy".
Even before political voices emerged in their support, multiple mutinies already dot the district. Last month, 55 farmers were arrested and jailed in Akaltara, while demonstrating near the site of an upcoming 3600 MW power plant. "Why is the government forcibly acquiring our land at cheap rates for a private company?", said Jawahar Dubey, a former MLA, among those arrested. With the men in jail, village women led by sarpanch Aarti Dhruv, sustained the dharna, under a hot sun, on the edge of the plant site, watching industrial cranes and girders churn their farmland that once yielded two harvests of paddy. Read the full report here.
Source: Supriya Sharma, TNN, Janjgir-Champa.
