‘It was fake’: Indian villagers allege forgery behind Adani mine project

The alleged forgery concerns village-council resolutions presented as proof that tribal residents agreed to surrender forest land for an Adani-linked bauxite mine. This matters because Indian law requires written consent before traditional tribal land can be diverted for another use.

Government documents reportedly recorded consent from 580 adults in Balda and Bannur. Villagers say many signatures and thumbprints were fabricated or impersonated. They also allege that the documents include names of people who died years ago and fictitious people. Some residents say signatures from an earlier, unrelated meeting were pasted onto the mine resolution.

Raghunath Khara said he always signs in English, but found a thumbprint attributed to him. He said he was protesting outside the meeting instead. The article reports no response from the Adani group, the district magistrate, or the district police chief to the allegations.

The Balda Hill project is a bauxite mine intended to extract ore from Balda Hill in Odisha’s Koraput district. It is being developed by Kalinga Alumina Limited, a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited, the conglomerate owned by Gautam Adani. The project is valued at $24m.

The mine would use a large part of the tabletop Balda Hill. The hill contains forests, grasslands, and caves. At least 10 nearby tribal villages consider the area sacred. Hundreds of Indigenous residents in Balda and neighbouring Bannur have reportedly lost land to the new mine.

The project matters beyond its industrial purpose because the land is both a resource and a cultural landscape. Its progress depends on valid village-council consent under India’s forest and tribal-area rules. Villagers dispute whether that consent was genuinely obtained, while the developers and authorities did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.

The official documents claimed that all 580 adults in Balda and Bannur consented to the mine. The article gives the village figures as 360 adults in Balda and 227 in Bannur, even though those figures total 587. Villagers and elected heads dispute the records and say the meetings were invalid.

Photographs taken by residents showed about 40 attendees in Balda and 68 in Bannur. Together, that was about 108 people. The meetings took place on October 9 last year, with Bannur located 5km from Balda. Several attendees said they opposed mining or refused to sign the document circulated there.

Under the rule described in the article, a resolution is valid only when 50 percent of all adults in the village give written consent. The large gap between recorded consent and visible attendance is therefore central to the allegations. It raises questions about whether a lawful quorum and genuine approval existed.

India’s Constitution recognises Indigenous communities’ rights over their traditional lands. The article also describes forest laws and laws granting autonomy to tribal areas. Together, these rules require village-council resolutions before tribal forest land can be diverted for another purpose, such as mining.

The mechanism is written consent from local adults. A resolution is valid only if at least 50 percent of all adults in the village consent in writing. This gives village councils a formal role in deciding whether communal land, forests, and culturally important places may be used for development.

The requirement matters in Balda and Bannur because Balda Hill includes forests, grasslands, and caves considered sacred by at least 10 villages. Villagers allege that the recorded consent was forged and that attendance was too low. If true, the process would have failed at the point where local approval was supposed to protect their land rights.

Forged or invalid consent documents would undermine the legal foundation presented for diverting the villages’ forest land. Since the article says a valid resolution is mandatory, authorities could face pressure to reject, review, or redo the approval process. The project’s claimed consent would no longer be reliable.

The immediate consequences could include a delay or challenge to the mine, and renewed demands to protect Balda Hill. Villagers could also seek scrutiny of the alleged signatures, thumbprints, and meeting records. The forests, grasslands, caves, and sacred landscape could remain protected while the dispute is examined, although the article does not state that protection has been ordered.

The article gives no final decision, investigation result, or penalty. It reports only that villagers raised the allegations and that the Adani group and senior district officials did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests. Any further outcome therefore depends on official review or legal action not described in the text.

Bauxite is a reddish rock and the principal ore of aluminium. It contains aluminium-bearing minerals mixed with iron oxides, clay, silica, and other materials. Mining companies extract it because aluminium metal is not usually found naturally in its pure form.

First, refineries crush and wash the ore, then use the Bayer process. Hot, concentrated sodium hydroxide dissolves the aluminium compounds. Impurities are separated, and aluminium hydroxide is formed and heated to produce alumina, also called aluminium oxide. This produces a fine white powder.

Next, an aluminium smelter uses the Hall-Héroult process. Alumina is dissolved in molten cryolite and subjected to a powerful electric current. The current separates aluminium from oxygen. Molten aluminium collects at the bottom and is cast into metal. The source article names a bauxite mine but does not describe its processing arrangements.

Mining companies develop projects and seek access to underground resources, while government authorities administer land, apply environmental and forest rules, and record approvals. Indigenous village councils represent local communities where traditional land is involved. In the article’s framework, no single actor has unlimited control over tribal forest land.

The key mechanism is the village-council resolution. India’s Constitution recognises Indigenous land rights, and the article says forest and tribal-autonomy laws require written local consent before forest land is diverted. At least half of all adults must consent. Authorities then rely on that process when considering a project such as the Balda Hill mine.

Power remains contested in practice. Kalinga Alumina Limited is developing the mine, while villagers say the recorded approval is fraudulent. Elected village heads called the meetings invalid, and district officials did not respond to questions. The case shows that paperwork, local participation, and official oversight all shape control of natural resources.