More trouble for Posco, port may lose clearance

After running into rough weather with its steel project, South Korean major Posco may find it difficult to convince an environment ministry committee regarding its port project on Orissa.

Updated on: Nov 18, 2010, 23:53:10 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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After running into rough weather with its steel project, South Korean major Posco may find it difficult to convince an environment ministry committee regarding its port project on Orissa.

The environment ministry's Expert Appraisal Committee has raised concerns on the requirement of a captive port for Posco's steel plant in Paradeep, when there was another port just 12 km away.

Tata is coming up with a port at Damra 80 km from Posco's proposed port at Jatadharmohan creek.

Environment groups had been objecting to setting up another port close to the existing one and said the contention of the Orissa government, which the ministry had earlier accepted, is under the scanner.

The state government had said the port was required to ensure continuous flow of ore to the proposed steel plant and would create jobs for locals.

"The ore can also come from the Paradeep port," said Biswajit Mohanty, secretary of the Orissa Wildlife Society, which had petitioned the ministry against the proposed port in 2007.

The ministry didn't react then but now the EAC has taken it up seriously.

The panel, which is slated to meet on November 30, had asked the project proponents to justify dredging of 28 million cubic metres of sand and how its impact on the coastline will be negated through environment management.

The Olive Ridley turtles from Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary, about 30 km away, visit the coastline and dredging can adversely impact their habitat.

The EAC said the quality of the sand may not be suitable to develop the port.

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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