Anti-Vedanta activists hail MoEF probe panel

The anti-Vedanta activists firmly opposed to mining of bauxite by Vedanta Aluminium Limited at Niyamgiri hills in south Orissa's Kalahandi district have welcomed the move of the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to look into the allegations of the locals pertaining to violations of environment norms and forest rights.

At the same time, these activists have pointed out that there was no necessity of constituting a new panel for the purpose by the ministry.

“When several other panels have already given their opinion against mining of bauxite, there was no necessity to form another such panel”, said Sidharth Nayak, president of Green Kalahandi, an environmental pressure group and Kumuti Majhi, president of Niyamagiri Surakhya Samiti (NSS).

“We welcome the environment ministry's move to find out the facts about the violation of the environment law and forest rights of the tribals in the Niyamgiri hills”, Prafulla Samantra, president of Lok Shakti Abhiyan (LSA) said here on Wednesday.

Samantara has been opposing the proposed bauxite mining in the Niyamagiri hill by the VAL, a subsidiary Vedanta Resources, for its 1.4 million tonne capacity refinery plant at Lanjigarh for the last six years. The MoEF has formed a new, three-member panel headed by N C Saxena of National Advisory Council (NAC) to look into the issues raised by the local people and green activists. The panel will submit its report after making field visit and reviewing all previous reports in relation to the application for diversion of forest land for the purpose of mining.

“We will meet the panel and show the facts like we have done in case of the previous panels”, Samantara said.

The empowered committee of Supreme Court had visited the area in 2005, while another three-member panel, headed by the noted activist Usha Ramanathan, visited the spot and interacted with the local tribals early this year. Both the committees reportedly opined against the proposed mining of bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills.