Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday raised concerns over tree cutting on government and forest land in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhirauli area for a coal mining project.
He alleged that the project, allotted in 2019 and being pushed forward in 2025, was moving ahead without key legal clearances and in violation of laws that protect tribal communities.
“In Dhirauli, Madhya Pradesh, Modani has begun cutting trees on Govt & forest land for its coal mine – without Stage-II forest clearance and in blatant violation of FRA, 2006 & PESA, 1996. Villagers, mostly Scheduled Tribe communities & even a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), are rightly protesting,” Ramesh wrote, using the Congress phrase that claims proximity between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and big businessmen like Gautam Adani.
The coal block falls in a Fifth Schedule Area, where the Constitution extends special protections for tribal rights and self-governance, Ramesh said.
He claimed that despite requirements under the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, no gram sabha consultations have taken place. Under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, gram sabhas hold the authority to decide whether forest land can be diverted for non-forest purposes.
According to Ramesh, these approvals have been bypassed.
The senior Congress leader further claimed that Stage-II clearance from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for the diversion of nearly 3,500 acres of forest land has not been approved.
“The Modi Govt imposed this allotment from above in 2019, and is now rushing ahead with it in 2025 without the ESSENTIAL legal clearances. This is simply because Modani is a (f)law unto itself,” he said.
Ramesh warned that the alleged project would uproot families already displaced once before, subjecting them to “double displacement.”
“Forests are not just sustenance, they are sacred to the local Adivasi groups. Compensatory afforestation is a very, very poor ecological substitute,” he wrote.
Last month too , Ramesh had criticised the Union environment ministry for allegedly weakening the Forest Rights Act. In a separate post on X, he referred to the ministry’s response to a letter signed by over 100 civil society groups and activists addressed to PM Narendra Modi.
The letter accused the government of “subverting” the FRA, which the ministry later dismissed as a “gross misunderstanding of facts.”
“These issues are particularly significant for tribal and other communities living in forest areas, whose livelihoods depend on forests. Moreover, they are extremely critical for India's ecological security. Unfortunately, the track record of the Modi government so far does not inspire confidence that these important questions will be addressed, nor that there will be any dialogue with the communities directly affected by these policies,” Ramesh had said.
The ministry issued a rebuttal on social media, stating that Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav’s remarks regarding the possible contribution of land titles under the FRA to forest degradation had been “grossly misrepresented, distorted, represented in a piecemeal manner and [were] totally out of context”.
The ministry said it remained fully “committed to protecting forests, India’s green cover and communities dependent on them or living in the vicinity of said areas”.
