Nagpur: The issue of rehabilitation, or say non-rehabilitation, of villagers and farmers of Gondegaon near Kanhan since the years has come to the fore, again. The victims have categorically blamed the WCL flip-flop for their plight and misleading the government as well in this regard. Alarmed over tempers running high between Gram Panchayat and Western Coalfields Limited over the rehabilitation issue, the region’s (Ramtek) MLA Mallikarjun Reddy convened a meeting at WCL Guest House in Gondegaon in order to hammer out a solution.
Before the meeting, the MLA Reddy along with WCL General Manager Mujumdar, Deputy District Collector (Rehabilitation) Patil, Ramtek SDO Joshi, Parshioni Tehsildar Tedhe, Zilla Parishad members Shivkumar Yadav, Shankar Chahande, Adv Gajanan Asole, Deputy Sarpanch Dinesh Rangari, Village Development Officer Palandurkar, and villagers, inspected the rehabilitation site of Gondegaon. During the inspection, a slew of shortcomings were noticed. The responsibility of extending basic and other facilities at the rehabilitation site rests with the WCL. However, the place lacked adequate drinking water, electricity, school, anganwadi, lands for market and shops, temple, Boudha Vihar, crematorium, etc. The senior WCL officials failed to give satisfactory reply over the lack of facilities and thus drew a dressing down from the MLA Reddy. The leader directed the WCL authorities to initiate measures for the facilities at the place.
Demand to hike compensation amount:
A survey in 2012 for rehabilitation of Gondegaon had fixed the rates of compensation for lands and houses. The rehabilitation process was to be completed till March 2012. Since the rehabilitation was not done even after four years, the victims have now demanded hike in compensation amount in accordance with the inflationary trends. On the other hand, the WCL authorities are blaming the victims for delay in their rehabilitation.
Gold Rate
11 April 2025
The issue of deprivation of employment to the victims was also raised during the meeting. The WCL had, from time to time, assured to provide jobs but still not kept their words.
