Govt shows green light to salt units hanging fire in Gujarat
Decks have been cleared for approving eight salt manufacturing projects in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat which were stuck for almost two years because of environmental concerns.
Decks have been cleared for approving eight salt manufacturing projects in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat which were stuck for almost two years because of environmental concerns.
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The development came after environment ministry concluded that salt manufacturing units do not require environmental approval. They are not covered under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification of 2006. Removing another legal hurdle, the ministry said that salt pans coming within 10km of a national park or a sanctuary are not covered under the guidelines of national board for wildlife.
The eight salt manufacturing units are proposed within 10 km of Marine National Sanctuary in Jamnagar and the ministry’s statutory committee to consider projects on forest land – Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) – cleared them last week.
Two years ago the same committee had said that the proposals should be referred to the standing committee for its view. The FAC also wanted a socio-ecological study to understand impact of large scale salt manufacturing on the local population.
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“The committee was of the view that the proposals of sale production involve large tracts of land. There is a need to these cases in totality from the angle of avian faunal and floral biodiversity which can be done by referring all the cases to the wildlife board,” the FAC had said in August 2011.
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“The committee was of the view that the proposals of sale production involve large tracts of land. There is a need to these cases in totality from the angle of avian faunal and floral biodiversity which can be done by referring all the cases to the wildlife board,” the FAC had said in August 2011.
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Although not much happened on FAC recommendations for almost two years, the ministry swung into action in March. In all, about 500 hectares of rich mangrove land — considered as forest as per Supreme Court directions— would have to be diverted.
“Salt harvesting by solar evaporation of sea water is permissible with prior approval of state Coastal Zone Management Committee,” the ministry had said and negated the FAC recommendation to refer the proposals to the wildlife board.
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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