SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Sept 9: Panic prevailed among around one lakh residents of over a dozen areas in the Jharia township after the Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) management put up a public notice saying that a major part of the area has been affected by underground fire and that for the safety of life and property, it is better to evacuate.
East Bhagatdih Colliery Project officer of BCCL has put up the notice for the residents to evacuate the areas. The official said notice has been served on the directive of the Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMC) report.
East Bhagatdih, Boka Pahadi, Gopalichuk Basti Khas Jharia, Jharia Chouthaikuli, Hussainabad, Bihar Takies, Katras More Rajbadi Area Officers Colony, Tara Bagan, Kathgola 2 number Chanak, Singh Nagar Koiribandh, Indira Nagar, Bhalgora Ghaska Patti Shamsher Nagar have been declared unsafe by the coal company.
The notice has warned that since these residential areas have been subsidence-prone due to increasing underground fire, a major incident may occur at any time. So, it is in the interest of the residents to evacuate the dangerous place.
However, the residents have strongly protested the notice of the BCCL management saying that rather than arranging the safe shifting of people, the coal company is creating panic in the name of increasing underground fire.
Koiribandh resident and former councillor Anup Sab said that it is the game plan of BCCL to get the areas evacuated in the name of underground fire danger for mining the trapped coal.
“Time to time, the BCCL management puts up such type of notices especially during monsoon season when subsidence chance increases to escape from the responsibility of any untoward incident,” he said.
A resident of Indira Chowk Satish Paswan said that rather than displacing the residents from their houses, BCCL should try to save Jharia township from alleged increasing underground fire. “No family would leave their house for an uncertain world merely on routine notice,” he said.
A senior official of the Jharia Rehabilitation Development Authority (JRDA) said that a high-level meeting would be held in New Delhi on October 7 on the rehabilitation issue of the jharia fire-affected families.
