Surguja Korba Coal Adivasi Rice Forests Chhattisgarh

Surguja district in northern Chhattisgarh is an Oraon and Korwa tribal homeland where rice cultivation on the Surguja plateau's terraced fields has been practised for millennia using traditional paddy varieties collected and stored by tribal seed-keeper families. Korba district in Surguja's southern part is Chhattisgarh's power capital — the Korba coal belt with massive open-cast mines of South Eastern Coalfields (SECL) feeding thermal plants (NTPC Sipat, BALCO, CSEB) that supply power to central and western India. The adivasi communities displaced by Korba's coal and aluminium industry have received resettlement packages but have frequently lost traditional livelihoods, making the area a site of tribal rights and displacement activism.