Centre rejects eco-clearance for $1.7 bn Vedanta mine

In a landmark decision to safeguard the environment while implementing industrial projects, Environment and Forests minister Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday said the bauxite mining clearance given to Vedanta Resources and the Orissa Mining Corporation in Orissa had been withdrawn. Chetan Chauhan reports. Graphics: Cracking the whip | Listen to podcast | Highlights of panel report

Updated on: Aug 25, 2010, 02:30:01 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a landmark decision to safeguard the environment while implementing industrial projects, Environment and Forests minister Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday said the bauxite mining clearance given to Vedanta Resources and the Orissa Mining Corporation in Orissa had been withdrawn. He also said an initial approval for a six-fold expansion to Vedanta’s aluminium refinery in the state was being suspended.

The ministry has also barred the Vedanta refinery from buying bauxite — the main raw material needed to make aluminium — from 11 other mines in Jharkhand, pointing out that these were illegal. “There is no environment clearance for bauxite mining in Jharkhand,” Ramesh said.

The company did not respond to specific charges but said the mining project had been “extensively reviewed by the Supreme Court” in 2008.

Ramesh, however, quoted the Attorney General of India as saying the court had never said Vedanta would not have to get the ministry’s approval. He also said many violations came to notice after the 2008 judgment.

The decision has been welcomed by tribals of Niyamgiri Hills, where the mining was planned.

They had been agitating against the project for the past four years. “The agitation in that area will now die down,” said an official. “It will also signal that the government is sympathetic to the tribals.”

Ramesh withdrew the environment clearance given to the state-run Orissa Mining Corporation to mine three million tonnes of bauxite from the Niyamgiri Hills. The action was taken on the recommendations of two committees: one headed by National Advisory Council member N C Saxena and the other a Forest Advisory Committee.

Both concluded that Orissa Mining Corporation and Vedanta had violated three central laws – the Forest Rights Act, the Forest Conservation Act and the Environment Protection Act. “I have to enforce policy. As environment minister, I take responsibility,” Ramesh said, adding that his decision was based on new evidence submitted by the two committees. The Saxena report had said that allowing mining operations would mean a loss of 1.21 lakh trees, affect the region’s water supply and will shake “faith of tribal people in the laws of the land”.

BOX : Decisions on environment clearance to Orissa Mining Corporation and Vedanta refinery.

1. Final forest clearance to Orissa Mining Corporation and Sterlike bauxite mining project on the Nyamgiri Hills rejected.

2. Since forest clearance is rejected, environment clearance stands inoperable.

3. Vedanta refinery not to get bauxite from 11 of 14 mines, which does not have environment clearance.

4. Show cause notice to Vedanta on why environment clearance to one million tonne refinery should not be suspended.

5.Terms of Reference for allowing six fold expansion to refinery suspended as work started without seeking environment clearance.

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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