Fresh trouble is brewing over land for a mega coalmine project at Loba in Birbhum as the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) has proposed a price of Rs 14 lakh per acre to purchase 3,600 acres, an offer unacceptable to land-losers who say the rate is less a third of the market price in the area.
The central public sector undertaking needs around 3,600 acres to set up the open-cast coalmine in Loba.
Although the groundwork for the project started in 2009, a pause button had to be pressed in 2012 following a violent movement by the land-losers.
With the state government showing keen interest in the project but stressing that DVC must directly purchase land from the owners, talks started again — under the aegis of the district administration — in 2017 and the area was surveyed for an assessment of the land ownership pattern.
