“Only a wronged person goes to court,” said Shivpal Bhagat. “A favourable order – that the court quashed environmental clearance – had encouraged us. Now, our feelings are being toyed with.”

Shivpal, the former sarpanch of Sarasmal village in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district, has reason to be bitter. In January, after years of protest by angry villagers, environmental clearance was quashed for a sprawling coal mine project in Chhattisgarh that villagers alleged would destroy their community.

But now, six months later, the coal mine project is set to proceed regardless – in complete violation of orders passed by the National Green Tribunal. 

In January, the National Green Tribunal had quashed environmental clearance granted to the Rs 7,465 crore coal mine project under the Maharashtra State Power Generation Company, or Mahagenco, with an Adani Group company – Gare Palma II Collieries Pvt. Ltd – as the mine developer and operator.

One of the grounds for cancellation was that a public hearing held in 2019, which is mandatory for environmental clearance, was “not in accordance with law”. It deprived “affected people” of a “fair, impartial, unbiased and valid public hearing”. Hence, the NGT asked the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to reexamine the proposal afresh from the public hearing stage.

But on August 13, the ministry, on the recommendation of the expert appraisal committee, granted environmental clearance to the Mahagenco, relying on the same public hearing that NGT had flagged. 

“The new environmental clearance completely violates the NGT direction,” said Rinchin, an activist and one of the four petitioners in the case. “It disregards people’s concerns about their health and livelihoods. Most marginalised people will be affected by this government move.”

As things stand now, the project is well on its way – spread over more than 2,580 hectares, an area as big as one hundred Narendra Modi stadiums. It will displace 2,245 families in 14 tribal-dominated villages in Tamnar block, which is a Fifth Schedule area under the Constitution which grants it an additional layer of protection from land acquisition for projects.

“It’s a big setback for us,” said Amrit Bhagat, a local representative or panch from Sarai Tola village. “Most families here depend on agricultural land for livelihood. And if a company comes to acquire our land, where would we go?”

Newslaundry sent questionnaires to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, its secretary Leena Nandan, and the member secretary of the expert appraisal committee to ask whether the new environmental clearance violates the NGT order. This report will be updated if they respond.

Sequence of events 

The petition with the NGT was filed in 2022 by four residents – Kanhai Ram Patel, Premshila Ratiya Narad, Premshila Rathiya and Rinchin – against the union of India for quashing environmental clearance. Rinchin was the applicant in person.

On January 15, 2024, the NGT bench, comprising judicial member Sudhir Agarwal and expert member Afroz Ahmad, issued its final order running into 209 pages, after previously reserving its judgement for five months. 

Apart from the public hearing, it flagged other concerns too with respect to “non-consideration” of an Indian Council of Medical Research report, a hydrological study, and carrying capacity. Importantly, it’s become quite rare for the tribunal to cancel environmental clearance for large projects.

Soon after, Mahagenco challenged the order in the Supreme Court but withdrew the case on March 15. Five days later, Mahagenco approached the environment ministry’s expert appraisal committee, which recommends environmental clearance to the ministry, for fresh clearance.

The committee met on July 1 and 2. According to the minutes of the meeting, the committee quoted the NGT order that sought reexamination of clearance from the stage of public hearing. 

But instead of pushing for a second public hearing of the 14 affected villages, the committee said it was satisfied with the Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board’s claim that the previous hearing had been conducted “as per the procedures” laid down in the Environment Impact Assessment Notification of 2006. 

A sub-committee of the expert appraisal committee, which visited the project site between May 17 and 19, also left it to the Chhattisgarh board to submit details of the 2019 public hearing. It isn’t clear if the five-member sub-committee held consultations with villagers, but it consulted officials from the state government and Mahagenco, according to its report.

Additionally, the expert appraisal committee relied on a socioeconomic study by the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, an institute in Ahmedabad, that said villagers “largely supported the project” because of “anticipated benefits in terms of financial compensation, improved livelihoods, and enhanced infrastructure and want the project to be started at the earliest”.

This study was conducted on the basis of focus groups held with “various stakeholders in seven villages” and data collection from all 14 villages, according to the expert committee. 

But the study itself had been commissioned by Mahagenco.

The controversial public hearing

The public hearing flagged by the NGT had been held at a school in Dolesara village on September 27, 2019. 

During the hearing, 58 people from four villages supported the project. Over 63 percent of them were from Dolesara. The minutes of this hearing do not record any objections to the project.

But around 1,000 people, who picketed outside the school since dawn, were not allowed to enter the building.

In its order, NGT noted: “It appears that only those who were supporting the project were allowed to participate and their statements were made part of the proceedings.” The tribunal also said that holding a hearing in one village deprived residents of other villages from participation.

“We have found that so far as this aspect is concerned, proceedings (noted by presiding officials) though mention about gathering of 1000 people but nothing of their demand has been mentioned. It is also not clear why such a large number of persons were denied participation. In our view, this has vitiated the proceedings,” the order said.

As such, the NGT concluded: “In the entirety of the facts and discussions made above, we find that in the present case, public hearing has not been conducted in accordance with law, satisfying the words and spirit of the requirement of public consultation and proceedings are such so as to deprive the affected people fair, impartial, unbiased and valid public hearing/public consultation.”

According to the petitioners, before this hearing took place, three other consultations were called off due to opposition by the villagers. In August 2019, villagers wrote a letter to the nodal officer in charge of consultation. 

“There are already seven operational coal mines. Because of this, the land has been destroyed. The upcoming projects will also destroy whatever is left…This will destroy our tribal culture and people dependent on agriculture,” the letter said. It urged the district administration to cancel the project and protect the environment.

Relying on the petitioners’ argument, the tribunal said that in the last three years, all 14 villages had passed resolutions against the project and this had not been taken on record by the government.

The villagers were jubilant after the NGT passed its order. But their joy was short-lived, with the expert committee recommending fresh environmental clearance just six months later. According to the minutes of the meeting, the committee claimed it had been informed by the Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board that locals were given ample space to voice their views.

It said a representative of the board claimed that Raigarh’s additional district magistrate “announced many times” for local people to “come forward and respond and record their objections and consent”. 

So, the expert committee recommended environmental clearance – which was approved by the ministry last month. 

“When nobody listens to you, the court is the only option available. It’s not easy for the poor to reach the court. You have to gather evidence, videos and documents,” said petitioner Kanhai Ram Patel, a resident of Sarasmal village. “And if you are lucky, you can get a favourable order. The government does not even comply with the court’s direction. It listens only to the corporate.”

Concerns about water, health, pollution

But what about the other concerns flagged by the NGT?

The tribunal raised questions on the area’s carrying capacity, referring to the upper limit of burden on natural resources such as water, soil and air by commercial activities. Sector 2 of Gare Palma, the location of the proposed project, already has 14 coal mines and two power plants. In 2019, in a separate case, an NGT expert committee had said the Tamnar-Gharghoda region was “close to exceeding its environmental carrying capacity”.

This was discussed during the expert appraisal committee meeting in July. According to the minutes of the meeting, IIT-Patna was commissioned by the Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board to carry out an additional carrying capacity study. It’s not clear when this study was conducted.

The study concluded that pollutants in the Tamnar block were within acceptable limits and suggested mitigation measures. 

The minutes of the committee meeting read: “The Committee observed that carrying capacity report concluded that in Tamnar block, the concentration of PM, SO2, and NOx falls comfortably within the acceptable limits. Nonetheless, the RSPM levels in the region are close to the highest allowable limit for an industrial zone. Particulate matter could potentially hit its peak level in the future because of build-up. Hence, more steps need to be taken from the environmental management plan to improve climate change and decrease industrial pollution.”

Next, a report by the  National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (Neeri, a government institute) had noted “values of arsenic, nickel, iron, manganese, fluoride and other such minerals were found beyond the permissible limits” in some locations. 

But the expert committee said no such observation was made by study by IIT Patna, and also by a hydrological report prepared by IIT (ISM) Dhanbad. The Dhanbad report also noted that the natural course of the Kelo river, which flows through the project site, could be maintained “by restricting the mining operation at least 100 m away from both sides of the bank”.

On health impact on villagers, two studies by the Indian Council of Medical Research in 2019-20 and the Central Institute of Mining and Full Research in June this year flagged “substantial environmental and occupational health concerns” for the local population. One of the reasons why the NGT cancelled environmental clearance was because the ICMR report had not been taken into consideration during evaluation of the project by the expert appraisal committee in 2019.

But in its recent meeting, the expert committee brought up data from the Raigarh chief medical officer, which had been submitted by Mahagenco, that said coal mining wouldn’t have “much impact on the occurrence of diseases in the area”.

Shripad Dharmadhikary, an environmentalist who has monitored coal mining and its impact on ecology, said the Tamnar-Gharghoda blocks had reached their carrying capacity a long time ago. “Unless serious impacts created by mining, power plants, washeries and other industries are first addressed, a clean up is done, and a comprehensive study is carried out, the government should not clear new coal mining projects,” said Dharmadhikary, founder-coordinator of Manthan Adhyaya Kendra, an advocacy group in water and energy sectors.

Petitioner Rinchin pointed out that Mahahengo and state bodies were facilitating or commissioning new reports to contradict earlier reports. “It was just a cover-up to get clearance anyhow,” she said.

So, what is their next course of action?

Petitioner Patel said the villagers would either knock on NGT’s doors again or approach the Supreme Court.