The guns have fallen silent in Gadchiroli with the end of Maoism. But a new battle is emerging over forests, land and the future of India’s minerals frontier.

For three days this month, thousands of tribal farmers sat in protest near Chamorshi in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district. Their demand: stop acquiring our land.

On 12 May, the state government approved the acquisition of more than 311 hectares in four villages for a proposed airport, and sanctioned about Rs 77 crore as compensation to villagers. Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) is moving ahead with plans to acquire nearly 3,000 hectares across 14 villages in Chamorshi tehsil for a proposed Rs 1 lakh crore steel plant of the JSW Group.

Beyond the recent announcements of scattered land acquisition lies a far bigger plan involving thousands of hectares of forest and agricultural land in this unspoilt southeastern corner of the state for mining infrastructure, steel manufacturing and other industrial projects.

Faced with growing resistance, the government has temporarily suspended some of the planned acquisition, but protesters know from experience that the pause won’t last.

The current, spontaneous agitation is not simply about compensation, though. It is about the future of this pristine forest district (nearly three-quarters of Gadchiroli is under forest cover), which has become the site of a gigantic resource-extraction enterprise.

Earlier this year, in the budget sessionof the state legislature, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that Gadchiroli would be transformed into a steel hub, promising over Rs 2.6 lakh crore worth of investments and the creation of 70,000 jobs. The district, long associated with Maoist insurgency, is being recast as the state’s next big industrial hub.

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It doesn’t seem to matter that........

© National Herald