More trouble for Vedanta's bauxite mining project in Orissa

Troubles have mounted for Anil Aggarwal promoted Vedanta's bauxite mining project in Orissa with the Environment ministry asking the four member committee to probe in detail the likely physical and economic displacement of the primitive Dongria Kondhs tribe and its impact on their cultural and social lives.

Updated on: Jul 24, 2010, 17:44:07 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Troubles have mounted for Anil Aggarwal promoted Vedanta's bauxite mining project in Orissa with the Environment ministry asking the four member committee to probe in detail the likely physical and economic displacement of the primitive Dongria Kondhs tribe and its impact on their cultural and social lives.

This comes close on the heels of Attorney General G E Vahanvati's opinion that the Environment ministry has full right to decide on the final approval to the company's bauxite mining project in tribal dominated Nyamgiri hills in backward Lanjigarh district. Before the opinion, the ministry officials had said the Supreme Court had already given approval to the project in 2008.

After receiving the opinion, the ministry widened the scope of NC Saxena committee, constituted on June 29, by including five new stringent terms of reference in addition to the existing two. The committee has been constituted to study on ground impact of the bauxite mining in Nyamgiri before the ministry decides on final approval to the project.

One of the most important clause added is on investigating whether Forest Rights Act, which provides for seeking approval of locals before implementing the project, has been implemented or not. This has been a long standing demand of activists, protesting against the project.

The ministry also wants to know about the "economic and physical displacement" due to the Vedanta's mining project and whether the locals were provided adequate rehabilitation with regard to resource displacement.

Tribals under the Forest Rights Act have a right to minor forest produce but in most project areas it has not been allowed. Dongria Kondhs tribe, which live in Nyamgiri hills, the project area, is said to have been adversely impacted because of the project and civil society organizations have constantly highlighted their plight.

The committee has also been given discretion to investigate any issue related to the project, thereby opening a can of worms for the company.

The Environment ministry has asked the committee to submit its report by end of August. Saxena and other committee members have already visited the area twice. "We have asked them to submit a concrete report on the project, on basis of which the ministry will decide on the final approval," said Environment and Forest minister Jairam Ramesh.

Vedanta's mining project has been a caught of war of letter between the ministry and the Orissa government with the latter refuting the claims that the company has failed to abide by the Forest Rights Act while implementing the project.

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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