Heritage activists flag threats to Ramappa temple from SCCL open cast mine project

Heritage conservationists in Telangana are apprehensive about an impending threat to Ramappa temple, a 13th century monument and the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in the state located at Palampet village in Mulug district, from the proposed deep opencast coal mining project by state-owned Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL).

Presently under the control of Archaeological Survey of India, the heritage monument acknowledged as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on July 25, 2021, is hardly 5 km away from the open cast mine of Singareni Collieries at Venkatapur village.

The proposed open cast coal mine is planned to extract an estimated 40.4 million tonnes of coal over approximately 19 years across forest, agricultural and assigned lands.

“The company is planning to deploy heavy machinery in this open cast mining to a depth of 300 metres, which is likely to cause tremors in the soil threatening to destabilise the heritage monument,” heritage conservationist M Panduranga Rao, a member of Kakatiya Heritage Trust, said.

The temple was built around 1213 AD under the Kakatiya dynasty by Recherla Rudra, a general of Ganapati Deva. Named after its master sculptor Ramappa, the structure is celebrated for its exquisite carvings in hard dolerite and sandstone, lightweight “floating bricks” in the vimana, and an innovative confined sandbox foundation.

“The sand-filled base, compacted to optimal density, has historically absorbed seismic shocks, helping the temple endure earthquakes and the passage of more than eight centuries,” Rao said.

The temple complex is closer to the earthen-bounded Ramappa Lake, a Kakatiya-era irrigation work with about 3 TMC storage capacity that supports roughly 30,000 acres of farmland and remains a vital water source for drinking and agriculture in the region.

Kakatiya Heritage Trust, which played a key role in getting the UNESCO recognition to the temple had opposed the grant of a No Objection Certificate by the Palampet Special Development Authority (PSDA) twice – in March 2023 and December 2024. “Even ASI and other heritage activists also opposed the move. But now, the Singareni authorities have revived the proposal to take up coal mining at Venkatapur,” Rao said.

In a report titled “Impact of Opencast Mining of Singareni Collieries on UNESCO Inscribed Ramappa Temple & the Great Heritage of Ramappa Lake,” submitted to the Union coal ministry in 2025, quoted several observations made by Geological Survey of India observations, stating that the temple complex was already structurally disturbed, represented by a large number of major and minor faults along with joints crisscrossing the whole region.

“Over the years, the monument showed signs of distress, including fracturing and differential settlement of large floor beams partly due to past earthquakes and natural ground-water changes,” Rao said.

A senior official of Singareni Collieries, who did not want to be named, said there was no threat whatsoever to Ramappa temple complex due to open cast mining, as it falls well outside the buffer zone. “The company commissioned technical studies involving IITs and other agencies, which said there would be controlled blasting during the mining and the vibrations would be well below the temple’s tolerance thresholds,” he said.

The report, however, said there would definitely be impact of blasting on the Ramappa Temple in the long run due to periodic and cyclical vibrations, considering the fatigue.

It said the Kakatiyas had built the temple on a confined sand box foundation where the sand is compacted to its optimal density. As long as the sand is confined in the box, the foundation is able to take the load of the superstructure which sustained the monument for more than 800 years.

“However, due to vagaries of nature, ground water fluctuation, presence of lineaments and the impact of earthquakes have created enough disturbances,” Rao said, adding that the impact of blasting now, even though at lower levels, will have definitely deleterious impact on the stability of the monument.

At a meeting held by Palampet Special Development Authority on September 8 in Mulug, the Kakatiya Heritage Trust members raised strong objections to the proposed coal mining.

Mulugu Collector Borkhade Hemant Sahadevarao, who heard the objections from the trust members and arguments of the SCCL authorities, declared that no permission would be granted for coal mining hurriedly without addressing the concerns of the heritage activists and local people.

“Conservation of the World Heritage Site remains the highest priority. No decision on mining will be taken without comprehensive scientific studies, environmental safeguards, continuous monitoring and compliance with heritage norms,” he added.