Cuddalore – A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been reached between NICIL and Vyakthi Vikas Kendra India (VVKI), an organization with expertise in the field, to take up land reclamation through rearing of live stocks as a pilot project.
The project broadly focuses on rapid reclamation of land with rapid greening of Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) by sustainable land restoration through ‘Integrated Natural Resource Management’, which will help in less land preparation and maintenance.
The rural communities from nearby villages will be trained and deployed to maintain the live stocks including cultivation of fodder crops thus will help to generate employment.
Land reclamation works in mine II were first taken up during 1995-96. It is proposed to reclaim 70 ha of mined out land and carry out afforestation over an area of 50 hectares during this year followed by the area of about 874.50 hectares reclaimed and 670.50 ha afforested till 31 Mar.
Land reclamation activity is being carried out in mines using the integrated farming (IF) method by planting various types of tree species to restore the pre-mined ecological equilibrium to return such areas an ecologically acceptable mining land.
The Pilot project is active for 5 years with 24 months for land reclamation.
The Project has been started on Pilot basis with 36 ha land, while 10 ha will be earmarked for growing fodder for the cattle.
