Ambikapur, Jan 7 (PTI) Chhattisgarh Congress chief Deepak Baij on Sunday alleged the newly-elected BJP government is working in the interest of corporates and trees are being chopped in bio-diversity rich Hasdeo Arand area for a coal mine extension project.
Baij and several Congress workers joined villagers in Hariharpur in Surguja district in an ongoing protest against coal mine projects.
Hasdeo-Arand coalfield spread over a 1,878 sq km area in Korba, Surguja and Surajpur districts in the northern part of the state, is located about 300 km from Raipur. The region is called as 'lungs of Chhattisgarh' for its rich forest.
"During campaigning for elections last year, Rahul Gandhi had said if people press the lotus (BJP's symbol) button on the EVM, Adani will come out from the VVPAT and this statement has proved to be true after the formation of the BJP government in the state," Baij told protesters.
He alleged the Vishnu Deo Sai government has started handing over natural resources including jal, jungle, zameen and mineral resources to Adani (group).
Baij rejected Chief Minister Sai's claim that the permission for felling trees in the bio-diversity-rich Hasdeo Arand for a coal mine was given by the previous Congress government.
"The reality is that this permission and environmental clearance were given by the Modi government," he alleged.
The previous Congress government had cancelled this approval and had also written a letter to the Centre seeking to cancel the permission, the Congress leader said.
"On October 31, 2022, the Additional Secretary of Chhattisgarh's Forest and Climate Change department had written a letter to the Inspector General of Forests, Government of India, urging to ban the Parsa open cast coal mine excavation and cancel the proposal for deforestation.
"A resolution was also passed by the Chhattisgarh assembly on July 26, 2022, that mining activities will not be carried out in Hasdeo area and sent to the Centre," he said.
Baij claimed 50,000 trees have been chopped in the Hasdeo area so far since December 2023 when the BJP came to power, and added that a total of 3 lakh trees will be felled.
Notably, the fresh tree felling exercise for Parsa East and Kete Basan (PEKB) phase-II extension coal mine in the Hasdeo Arand region started on December 21 last year amidst police security cover.
The local administration had claimed that it had all the necessary permissions to go ahead with the tree felling in PEKB-II which is an extension of the PEKB-I mine.
This mine has been allotted to Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited (RRVUNL) which has given MDO (mine developer and operator) to Adani group.