Bengal: Deucha Pachami Coal Project Halted in Birbhum After Tribal Unrest

Kolkata: “We will not part with our land under any duress. Flouting all environmental norms trees are being cut to make opencast mines on forest lands. Next, our lands will be taken over by the government, Surma Tudu, a young activist, told reporters in Deucha, after mainly women villagers across four villages of Deucha stopped the government excavation work in their village for the coal mining project by putting “charka” on the ground, which signaled the stoppage of work, as has been the tribal custom. 

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the recently held Bengal Global Business Summit 2025 (BGBS) had announced that from February 6, work would start at the Deucha Pachami project for mining basalt.

Read Also: BGBS-8 Betrays Mamata’s Frantic Effort to Woo Investments

At that time, women of Chanda Mouza had protested against the announcement. Last Tuesday, the contractor organisation tried to restart work in the forest land, which was thwarted by hundreds of tribal women.

Read Also:Deocha Pachami's Tribal Villages vow to Prevent Coal Mining in Name of Hammer and Sickle

It may be recalled that the Chief Minister had thanked the tribal people for their land, and had promised about one lakh jobs. However, local people are seeing all those as “false statements”.

The government is cutting down trees on forest land in 12 acres to start the open cast coal mine in that area, which will terribly hurt the ecosystem of region where tribal people dwell, said sources.

There are reports alleging that the police, after getting a drubbing from the Banerjee-led administration for not being able to thwart the revolt, has started “torturing” tribal villagers.

A fact-finding team from Kolkata, which had gone there to ascertain the ground situation,   was allegedly “locked up for hours” in the guest house at Siuri by the police and administration. When they managed to remove the lock and go into that area, they were attacked, allegedly by ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) men.  One of them was beaten up and had to be hospitalized, according to local newspaper reports.

Commenting on the ground situation in Deucha Pachami at present, Communist Party of Indian (Marxist) state secretary Mohd. Salim told NewsClick that the TMC government was not setting up an industry on that site but was transforming the entire area into a “war zone”.

Among the 10,000 to 12,000 residents of the area, those who have consented to give land to the government, most are non-tribal absentee landlords, he said, adding that  this was being termed as “a success” by the state government. The state government has reportedly identified 784 families in more than 90 villages for resettlement. 

On the other hand, some members of the Livelihood Protection Committee of Pachami, under whose aegis this movement is taking place, told Newsclick, “We can believe in any political party, we can believe in any religion, but we won’t give our land in Pachami-- this is the motto of our movement.”

Jagannath Tudu and Mithun Marandi said vacating the area for a coal mine would be an “act of cowardice”. “As long as we live, we won’t let it happen,” they said in unison.

In the Deucha Pachami region, women are ready for a fight in the villages, such as Harinsingha, Barmeshia, Kendrapahari, Mathurapahari, Barpahari and Sagarbandhi. “We won’t let the government take even one spade of our soil from here,” they said.

Residents alleged they have often been threatened and false cases lodged against tribals of the area by TMC activists. When they protested against these, Adivasi Gaota, a pro-TMC tribal organisation, members of which have amassed a huge fortune, was expelled from the Pachami area.

Sunil Soren and Robin Soren, two prominent leaders of the Gaota. now do not have the right to stay in their villages in Pachami because in the past few years, they have been accused of playing with the tribals’ interests and amassing wealth, the villagers alleged.

From February 2023, first, in Harinsingha Math, a protracted dharna programme was started. Later, this was shifted to Barameshia village. During the dharna, on April 13, a 30-member delegation went to Kolkata at the call of the Chief Minister. Nine delegates met Banerjee and urged her to withdraw the project. However, before the Bengal Global Business Summit, in her eagerness to showcase the “success” of the project before industrialists, the administration tried to organise a camp in Dewanganj Math on April 17, 2023, which was stopped by the tribals, as mentioned above.

Read Also: Bengal Coal-Mining Project Raises Many Questions of Equity

Reacting to the protest by the tribal community Pachami, senior advocate and CPI(M) Member of Parliament, Bikashranjan Bhattacharya, told Newsclick, “I am happy that the tribal men and women have kept their word. The government is trying to hoodwink the simple tribals into a trap, which they should not fall into."

He said the project was in the “interest of private capital”, as the state government had neither the means nor the technical expertise to excavate deep opencast mines.  “Sooner or later this project will be handed over to private capital, and in the melee the simple tribal villagers will lose their land and work,” he added.

Notably, the Deucha Pachami coal block – the newest coal mine in West Bengal – is situated in Deucha and Pachami areas under the Mohammad Bazar community development block. This coal mine is set to be excavated in an opencast fashion and is likely to displace over 10,000 people from 11 villages. It will also affect about 53 hamlets and 70,000 people in the surrounding area overall. Most of the land in this area belongs to the tribals, which has been taken on lease by some Jharkhand-based or Bengal-based industrial groups for their stone crushing units.

The proposed mine will occupy over 11,222 acres. Of these, over 9,100 acres belong to the tribals. In September 2018, an agreement between the Central government and state government-owned West Bengal Power Development Corporation Limited (WBPDCL) allocated the land in question to the corporation. The state government has failed to start work on the ground for last five years.

The Pachami area is known for its stone chips and most of the residents of the area work in stone mines for their livelihood. Due to the presence of the stone-crushing industry in the region, the air quality is relatively poor.

However, owners of the stone mines are in favour of more mines. A foreman with a local stone mining biggie, Arun Udyog, told NewsClick, “The Chief Minister has told us that when the mines would be excavated, the owners of the stone-crushing units would get preferential treatment in deploying their machines – apart from getting compensation in case the stone quarries are affected.”

The irate tribals, under the aegis of Paschim Banga Samajik Nyayabichar Manch and Adivasi Adhikar Raksha Manch, have been organising rallies and expressing their distrust in the compensation packages offered by the state government. Protest meets have also been held in Siuri, Bolpur, Rampurhat, and Rajnaharand in Kachujor colony of the district against alleged police excesses against women protesters.

In November 2021, the state government had “unilaterally” declared a compensation and rehabilitation package without going through any mass redressal of grievances, which is mandatory in the Land Acquisition Act 2013.

As per sources, about 10 mouzas  (a type of administrative district, corresponding to a specific land area within which there may be one or more settlements) will be affected due to the decision  by the state government  to constitute an open cast mine. A total of 4,314 families consisting of 21,000 people will be evicted from their homeland out of which 9,034 people are santhals (a major tribal group) and 3,601 persons are from the Scheduled Castes. Out of 3,294 acres earmarked for the project , over 70% of the land belongs to local residents while only about 20% belongs to the government, the rest 6% is forest land.