A section of tribal people who are against the proposed Deocha-Pachami coal mine in Birbhum district took out a bike rally on Tuesday with a new demand that the Mamata Banerjee government grant them the right to quarry stones on their own land inside the project area.

Around 300 people took out the rally through half-a-dozen villages in the morning, urging everyone over a public announcement system to join the chorus for the new demand.

“We demand the legal rights to mine stones on our own land. This is in addition to our demand for the scrapping of the coal mine project. The government has to ensure that no outsider benefits from the stones. In the past years, outsiders took our land on lease at very low rates and made crores in profit,” said Daktar Kisku, one of the participants in the rally.

Sources have said the new demand is significant at a time most quarries are wound up in Birbhum district for allegedly violating the environmental laws. The district has over 230 stone mines and only six of them have the environmental clearance to continue operations at present.

The sources said most of the stone mines and crushing units were on tribal land and those had been taken on long-term leases decades back.

The tribal people who raised the new demand on Tuesday said they would form a cooperative in the area to run their own business and all 5,000 adivasi families would be the stakeholders and share the profits.

“There might be more than one cooperative, but we want equal profits for all who live in the area,” said a local tribal leader.

However, another faction of the tribal people, who had been protesting against the proposed coal mine, said it would not be easy for them to operate quarries as a lot of money was needed to set up the mines and crushing units.