Decision before PM's Korea trip

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is expected to decide on fate of South Korean steelmaker Posco's plant in Orissa before Prime Minister Manmohan visits the country for a G-20 summit slated for November 11 and 12.

Updated on: Oct 19, 2010, 01:13:30 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is expected to decide on fate of South Korean steelmaker Posco's plant in Orissa before Prime Minister Manmohan visits the country for a G-20 summit slated for November 11 and 12.

Although Ramesh refused to prescribe a deadline for deciding on recommendations of the four-member panel on alleged violations of environment clearance given to Posco, government sources expect the decision by first week of November. "There is no external pressure," he said, when asked by when the final decision will be made.

While agreeing that Posco's investment of $12 billion was biggest foreign direct investment in India, he said that will not be a basis for taking the decision. "Decision will purely be on the environmental grounds."

While three committee members have recommended scrapping of the clearances, its chairperson Meena Gupta has not recommended any such action.

This has resulted in Ramesh getting two different reports. The only unanimous suggestion was a fresh Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) of the plant and captive port at Paradip.

However, Ramesh did not rule out a middle path. And, possibility it could be a moratorium on environment clearance till comprehensive and integrated EIA, is done.

Ramesh said environment violations in Vedanta Resources aluminum refinery in Lanjigarh and Posco in Paradip are not comparable. In case of Vedanta, livelihood of Dongaria Kondh was involved whereas there is no such issue in case of Posco. Secondly, the Vedanta refinery is functional whereas Posco is yet to start construction work.

"The two operate in different environs," Gupta said, while the other three members made no reference of Vedanta.

Ramesh had scrapped clearance of bauxite mining for the refinery based on the N.C. Saxena committee report.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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