Ramesh hoodwinked Bellary project

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s ban on mining projects in Bellary appears to have been violated by his own ministry, if the Karnataka government’s latest communication to the ministry is to be believed.

Updated on: Mar 24, 2011, 01:29:58 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s ban on mining projects in Bellary appears to have been violated by his own ministry, if the Karnataka government’s latest communication to the ministry is to be believed.

It comes on the heels of Ramesh admitting that ministry’s forest division changed an important rule without his consent to allegedly help Jindal Steel in evading ministry notice on violating environmental norms.

Now, H M Mallikarjuna Swamy, under secretary with the Karnataka’s Forest and Environment department, had accused the forest division of giving final approval to a mining company for operations in Bellary despite the ban and without state government’s approval.

The company Ramgad Minerals and Mining Private limited got final approval (stage-II) for diversion of 335 hectares of forestland in September, 2010 even though the state government had referred the earlier mining by the company in Bellary to Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hedge for investigation.

While imposing the ban, Ramesh had said that new mining projects in Bellary will not be considered till the state chief minister B S Yeddyurappa implements the Lokayukta’s report on illegal mining fully.

"There is a ban imposed on forest mining leases by the Government of India itself in Bellary district. This case cannot be treated on a different footing," Swamy said in a letter written on March 16, 2011.

The Karnataka government also accused the environment ministry of violating its own norms while giving approval. "The user agency (the company) is required to comply with various conditions stipulated in the in-principal approval (granted in 2006) of the Government of India, which are not been complied with," the letter said.

As per the rules of the Forest Conservation Act, under which the approval was given, the final approval cannot be granted until the conditions stipulated in the in-principle approval are met. The state government is required to submit a certificate stating that the stipulated conditions have been met and forestland can be diverted.

"The final approval granted by the MoEF (ministry of environment and forest) and section (2) of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, without reference to the state government is contrary to law," the letter said, while asking Ramesh’s ministry to cancel the final approval granted for iron ore mining in Bellary.

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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