Vedanta decision this week

The environment ministry will decide this week whether Vedanta Resources will be allowed to run its aluminum refinery in Lanjigarh, Orissa, or not, by end of this week. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Oct 20, 2010, 24:20:39 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The environment ministry will decide this week whether Vedanta Resources will be allowed to run its aluminum refinery in Lanjigarh, Orissa, or not, by end of this week.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh in August had cancelled environment clearance of Orissa Mining Corporation, which was supposed to provide bauxite for the Vedanta refinery.

"The final decision will be taken in couple of days," he told HT.

The ministry had issued a show cause notice for cancelling environment clearance to the firm's aluminum refinery in Kalahandi district, Orissa on August 31 following a report by N C Saxena committee.

The panel had found the company guilty of environment violations on several counts including starting expansion work without taking ministry's prior approval.

The firm filed a reply to the notice and the Saxena committee report in first week of September claiming it had not committed any violations. On expansion, it had said that ministry's permission was not required under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) guidelines of 2006.

After examining the firm's reply last week, the ministry has found evidence of alleged environment violations and refused to give Vedanta a clean chit.

The ministry, in its view to Ramesh, has reportedly said that six-fold expansion was, indeed, a violation, as it would mean additional "environmental burden". Moreover, the firm had not done any environment impact assessment for the expansion of its refinery.

The ministry has also pointed out specific environment clearance conditions that the company had failed to meet.

Sources, however, refused to be specific saying that the entire report will be made public once Ramesh takes a final call on company's future in Lanjigarh.

The ministry sources did not rule out the possibility of withdrawing environment clearance for the plant issued following a Supreme Court order.

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

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.