This session explores how inclusive governance, transparency, and CSR integration can transform land acquisition and community engagement in India’s mining-intensive regions. Drawing on GMDC’s Odisha operations across the Baitarni West, Burapahar, and Kudanali-Lubri coal blocks — the session highlights a governance model that merges legal compliance, institutional due diligence, stakeholder dialogue with development-linked CSR. The session positions GMDC’s Odisha model as a replicable, people-centered framework for achieving equitable land transitions and social legitimacy in extractive industries.

Rationale:

Land acquisition in mining regions has been one of the most complex governance challenges in India where legal compliance often collied with intense socio-political resistance and institutional hurdles. Despite robust laws such as RFCTLARR (2013) and Odisha PESA, their real-world execution depends on community trust, transparency, and adaptive governance models. GMDC’s Odisha experience provides a live case of how a state PSU has operationalized these principles through participatory land mapping, due diligence, engagement & transparency, and CSR as a mechanism of social license. By linking governance reform with grassroots partnership, GMDC’s approach redefines the relationship between mining industries and communities, offering lessons for sustainable land transitions and institutional trust-building.

Session Objectives (5Ds):

• Diagnose:Examine administrative and community-level challenges in land acquisition and rehabilitation.

• Deconstruct:Break down GMDC’s stepwise governance process, from land mapping to CSR integration.

• Demonstrate:Gauge the social and economic impact of integrated CSR interventions in land transitions.

• Dialogue:Facilitate practitioner exchange between state PSUs, land officers, and CSR heads including political & non-political rural leaders on scalable frameworks.

• Document:Identify replicable policy and operational templates for responsible land governance in extractive industries.