KORAPUT — Balda Hill should not exist on paper anymore. On October 9, 2025, government records say 360 adults in Balda and 227 in Bannur — all 580 adults — raised their thumbs and gave away their sacred hill for Adani.
On the ground, the hill is still there — tabletop, forests, grasslands, caves worshipped by at least 10 tribal villages. So are the people whose thumbs were allegedly used.
Raghunath Khara, shopkeeper in Balda, stares at a sheet. "I always sign in English. It was someone else's thumb," he told Al Jazeera. He was protesting 100 metres from the gram sabha office that day with his wife and sister, not inside signing.
Rama Hantal, 60, lies paralysed in a tin hut, unable to speak for several years. His daughter-in-law Chandrama says there is no chance he attended. Yet his signature in Odia appears on the resolution. Her own thumbprint is listed — she denies attending.
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Three Gurubari Kharas are listed. One lives 3 km away and denies attending. Second, from Balda itself, died February 2025. "My mother died in February 2025. How can they forge her presence eight months later?" her son Sahdev asked. She was 75. Her bedridden husband, paralysed after falling from a tree three months before meeting, and nephew are also listed — both deny attending.
This is how consent is manufactured in Fifth Schedule Odisha.
Al Jazeera met dozens. Madhav Kuntili, farmer in Bannur, said a paper was passed promising roads, jobs, drainage, water, school if mining allowed. “I said if forest was being diverted, I would not sign. They took the paper away from me.”
Villagers say room where Gram Sabha held holds 50 people. How could 300-plus sign? Photographs attached to police complaint show sparse attendance. General Diary entry notes at least two other dead people's signatures, one paralysed woman, several absent persons.
Revenue clerk Ramnath Pungi was paid ₹3,000 to collect signatures, according to Ground Narrative investigation of same records. Notices were posted one day before meeting, violating two-week rule under Forest Rights Act 2006 and PESA 1996.
The project — $24 million bauxite mine by Kalinga Alumina Limited, subsidiary of Adani Enterprises — needs Gram Sabha consent under Section 4(2) FRA. Rules require 50% quorum of adults with written consent. Government claims 100% consent. Village heads of Balda and Bannur called meetings invalid, said no signatures collected.
Stage-I forest clearance was granted December 2024 for 157.2 hectares over which claims remain pending. Only 5 of 12 villages' FRA claims approved, land carved to deprive slopes where minor forest produce collected. Cave worship site excluded because multiple villages claim it. Environment clearance condition says uninterrupted access for worship, but company filing proposes developing site for tourism.
Parliament's Standing Committee on Rural Development flagged exactly this in May 2025 — forged signatures to bypass Gram Sabhas in Koraput, Rayagada, Kalahandi. Ministry of Tribal Affairs ordered inquiry. No FIR registered since February complaint. Instead, in Sijimali next door, 100 Adivasis jailed, 43 cases filed since 2023, Dr Randall Sequeira and Laxman Naik arrested October 16, 2026 for supporting anti-mining protests.
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Analytically, Koraput repeats Niyamgiri — 2013 Supreme Court said Gram Sabha is final authority, all 12 Niyamgiri Sabhas rejected Vedanta. In Sijimali, administration claimed 10 Gram Sabhas on same date, same time, same officials — physical impossibility. In Balda, dead sign for living.
When forests turn to paper, FRA becomes formality. ₹3,000 is not wage for clerk — it is price of a hill.
*Tags:* #Koraput #BaldaHill #ForestRightsAct #AlJazeera #Adani #KalingaAlumina #GramSabha #ForgedConsent #Adivasi #PESA