A team led by Bengal chief secretary Rajiva Sinha will visit Deocha-Pachami in Birbhum on Thursday to identify the areas where they need to work to ensure that a colamine project could be kicked off at the earliest as announced by chief minister Mamata Banerjee from a business conclave in Digha last week.

The visit holds significance as the top brass of the government was aware that it would not be easy to kick off the project in the area as the state has to cross a number of hurdles, including resistance from tribal population and thick overburden of stones covering the 2.1 billion tons of coal reserve.

“The visit is important as the state government has secured an approval from the Centre to start the mining of coal from the Harinsingha-Diwanganj area which has a stone overburden of 8 meters to 200 meters compared to other areas of the project that has stone cover of 300 meters to 1,000 meters.

In Harinsingha-Diwanganj, there is a coal reserve of 34,000 MMT. It is good to start with the project in the area as it is feasible to mine coal here due to lesser quantum of stone overburden,” said a source.

The effort by the state apparently would not be a smooth one as the BJP has planned to launch agitation to ensure that the state government considers the rights and demands of the tribals.

Sources in the state government said that primary estimates said that about 200 tribal families have to be shifted from the area to start the groundwork for the project.

“We will start work only when all tribal families are rehabilitated first,” said a source.

The government is also pinning hope on the Hainsingha-Diwanganj project as the state has about 178 acres of land in the project area, from where the basic work for the project would be kicked off.

A section of the officials, however, pointed out that kicking off the project within a short period is easier said than done.

“First, the tribal populace is dead against the project. They don’t want to be relocated. Second, the state has to arrange more land for the project. Given the hands off land policy, getting land would not be easier as tribal populace have resistance to get part with their land,” said an official.