‘11 of 14 bauxite mines in Lanjigarh illegal’

Digging out more dirt on the Orissa government over bauxite mining for Vedanta Resources, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the environment ministry has said that 11 of the 14 mines in the Lanjigarh area are “illegal”.

Updated on: Aug 24, 2010, 24:10:09 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Digging out more dirt on the Orissa government over bauxite mining for Vedanta Resources, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the environment ministry has said that 11 of the 14 mines in the Lanjigarh area are “illegal”.

This revelation has been made in a regional office report of the ministry on alleged mining violations in the area. Earlier, the Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) had said 60 per cent of mining in the state was illegal.

The FAC, in its report to Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday, has sought action against the state government for not taking Centre’s approval before starting mining operations.

The committee, which deliberated over the N.C. Saxena committee report over the weekend, has upheld the report and rejected approval to the project on five broad issues. These include violations under three Central laws — Forest Conservation Act, Forest Rights Act and Environment Protection Act (EPA) — and one state law — Orissa Villages Act.

In the five-page report, the FAC has also objected to Vedanta Resources working in the mining area though the in-principle approval for bauxite mining was given to public sector Orissa Mining Corporation.

“There is clear evidence that Vedanta is working in the mining areas in Nyamgiri Hills even though it has no role to play,” a government official said.

The corporation can mine up to one three million tonnes of bauxite for Vedanta refinery.

Although the FAC has no jurisdiction over the alleged expansion of Vedanta Resources refinery without ministry’s environment clearance, the panel has suggested that action be initiated under the EPA.

Vedanta Resources said there was no violation as they had applied for expansion but the ministry did not consider it within the required 145 days. “The law clearly says if there is no communication from the ministry, the project is deemed as approved,” the company spokesperson said.

Ramesh, who met Orissa chief minister Navin Pathnaik on Monday, is expected to decide on final approval to the project on Tuesday. Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is also visiting Lanjigarh on August 26.

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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