New Delhi: After the environment ministry kept on hold clearance for the Vedanta project, questions were raised on the mandate of the department to withhold approval. A section of the government was of the view that since the issue was settled in favour of Vedanta by two Supreme Court orders, there was no need to reopen the matter.
The ministry, which disputed this approach, had taken the issue to the Attorney General. It is learnt that the government’s top legal officer, who removed the ambiguities over the environment ministry’s mandate, has said it can decide on the clearance.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh refused to comment of the contents of the opinion from the Attorney General.
In 2008, the Supreme Court had directed the government to give clearance for diversion of 660.749 hectares of forest land for bauxite mining on the Niyamgiri hills in Lanjigarh. The ministry of environment, which contested this order through an administrative directive in 2009, withheld final clearance. “State/UT governments, where process of settlement of rights under the Forest Rights Act is yet to begin, are required to enclose evidences supporting that settlement of rights under Forest Rights Act, 2006, will be initiated and completed before the final approval for the proposals,” the environment ministry had said in its order.
The environment ministry has set up a four-member panel under NAC member NC Saxena to ascertain whether the Forest Rights Act has been properly implemented, and to determine the impact of the project on the livelihood, culture and material welfare of the Dongria Kondhs, a notified primitive tribal group, as also on the local wildlife and biodiversity. The committee is expected to submit its report in late August.
The committee would revisit issues examined by a three-member study team sent by the Forest Advisory Committee in January 2010. Doubts were raised on the findings of the team on account of methodological and other issues, including the alleged use of Vedanta equipment to undertake the forest and wildlife surveys.
Vedanta had recently sought the intervention of the prime ministerial establishment for the project. It had argued that the 2007 and 2008 orders of the Supreme Court allowed only a limited role for the environment ministry. It also cited the clean chit on wildlife and forest issues given to the project by the 2010 FAC study, a report that is being contested by the ministry.
Source: Economic Times
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