Polavaram dam issue: BJD calls UPA anti-tribal

Having its two prestigious projects — Posco Steel and Vedanta bauxite mining — almost blocked, MPs of ruling BJD in Orissa on Wednesday protested against environment minister Jairam Ramesh accusing him of displacing tribals by approving Polavaram Dam in Andhra Pradesh.

Updated on: Aug 19, 2010, 01:51:05 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Having its two prestigious projects — Posco Steel and Vedanta bauxite mining — almost blocked, MPs of ruling BJD in Orissa on Wednesday protested against environment minister Jairam Ramesh accusing him of displacing tribals by approving Polavaram Dam in Andhra Pradesh.

Apparently to hit Ramesh’s image of being the custodian of tribal rights, the BJD MPs led by party leader in Lok Sabha A.S. Sethi said the Polavaram Dam would lead to tribal groups losing their land as against environment ministry’s claim that no forestland will be submerged.

“Thousands of tribals will be displaced. UPA is anti-tribals,” Sethi said, while countering the environment clearance granted on July 28, which said that the Andhra Pradesh government have assured that no forest rights need to be settled under the Forest Rights Act.

“The approved relief and rehabilitation package would be implemented by the state in a time-bound, transparent and pari passu manner,” the environment clearance had said, while putting a condition that no land in Orissa and Chhattisgarh will be submerged.

Even though the project will have no impact in Orissa, the BJD MPs termed Ramesh’s policies anti-tribal. But their protest was limited to a demonstration outside the house. The MPs are likely to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Vedanta and Posco issues.

What has apparently irked Orissa government is the accusation made by an environment committee headed by former IAS N.C. Saxena that state government officials have colluded in violation of the Forest Rights Act in Nyamgiri, where bauxite mining is to be done. “The District Collector had submitted a fake certificate that consent of gram sabhas had been taken regarding bauxite mining,” Saxena said.

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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