Forest panel to look into green violations by Jindal steel plant in Odisha
The environment ministry’s Forest Advisory Committee will on November 28 take a call on the action to be initiated against Jindal Steel and Power Limited for allegedly starting work on a project in Odisha before getting the mandatory forest approval.
The environment ministry’s Forest Advisory Committee will on November 28 take a call on the action to be initiated against Jindal Steel and Power Limited for allegedly starting work on a project in Odisha before getting the mandatory forest approval.
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The company had started developing a steel plant having an initial capacity of 6 million tonnes to be later doubled. Along with the steel plant, six units of 135-MW each were also supposed to be developed for which coal was to be locally sources. The project is expected to cost R5,000 crore
Soon after the project received environment clearance in 2007, it allegedly started civil construction work even though the clearance letter clearly stipulated that no work would begin in non-forest land until forest clearance is approved.
A similar condition has also been prescribed under the Forest Conservation Act rules, which disallow construction on non-forest land. The condition has been imposed to prevent the project owners claiming clearance after starting work citing huge investments as an alibi.
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The ministry committee, constituted under the conservation act, recommended forest clearance in 2010 to the project but apparently over-looked the violation despite being pointed out by local non-government organisations.
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The ministry committee, constituted under the conservation act, recommended forest clearance in 2010 to the project but apparently over-looked the violation despite being pointed out by local non-government organisations.
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Now on the directions of Odisha High Court, the ministry has directed the FAC to look into the alleged violation. The FAC will examine this aspect at its meeting on November 28.
The ministry in 2012 had instituted an inquiry into allegations of the power plant using ground water instead of water from Brahmani River for cooling purpose as recommended in the environment clearance.
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.
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