 "Odisha may reserve jobs for locals in coal mining")
"Since coal mining is also an industry, we are of the view that employment clause of the state government should also apply to such projects. We have sent a proposal to the chief minister's office to reserve jobs for the locals in coal mining projects. The proposal needs to be cleared by the High Level Clearance Authority (HLCA) chaired by the chief minister”, said a senior government official.
Industries that have signed MoUs with the state government have to abide by an employment clause approved by the HLCA in 2009.
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As per this employment clause, industries setting up their projects in the state have to reserve 90 per cent jobs for locals in the unskilled and semi-skilled category, up to 60 per cent in skilled category and 30 per cent for the supervisory and managerial cadre while giving them the option to fill up the post of senior executives from the open market.
It may be noted that the Ministry of Coal had allocated 32 coal blocks in Odisha. Of these, five blocks- Mandakini-B, Utkal-D, New Patrapara, Naini and Baitarani west were deallocated by the ministry as per the recommendation of the inter-ministerial group (IMG) formed to oversee status of allocated coal blocks.
Among the allocated blocks, only the Talabira block awarded to Aditya Birla Group owned Hindalco Industries had begun production.
The state government had recently urged allocates to take immediate action for developing their allocated blocks.
A recent order of the state government has cleared the decks on processing of coal blocks without irregularities- a process that had almost grounded to a halt after the alleged scam in coal block allocations.
Accordingly, the state steel & mines department had come out with a checklist for the allocates.
"So far three allocates- Odisha Power Generation Corporation (OPGC), Monnet Power and Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL) have responded to our checklist”, said the official.
Seven coal blocks were in advanced stages of development, having either been granted prospecting licenses (PL) or mining leases (ML). These include Utkal B1 and Ramchandi coal blocks allocated to Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL), Utkal B2 (Monnet Ispat & Energy), Utkal-C (Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Ltd-IMFA), Utkal-E (National Aluminium Company-Nalco), OPGC (Manoharpur and dip side of Manoharpur) and north of Arkhapal and Srirampur coal block allocated to Strategic Energy Technology Systems Private Limited (SETSPL), a joint venture between a consortium of Tata companies and Sasol of South Africa.