Centre widens ambit of panel looking into Posco project

Much to the chagrin of the Naveen Patnaik government, the Centre has widened the ambit of the Meena Gupta panel looking into Korean giant Posco's steel project in Orissa by asking it to review compliance status of the Environmental Protection Act at the site.

The move comes just a couple of days after Patnaik met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and told reporters that he has been assured of a speedy clearance to the Rs 54,000 crore project in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district as it involves the country's largest foreign direct investment (FDI).

However, with the new mandates at its disposal, the deadline for the four-member panel headed by the ex-environment secretary to submit its report to environment ministry has been revised from August 28 to September 28.

The team had on Sunday completed its three-day assessment of the implementation of the Forest Rights Act in the area chosen for the proposed integrated steel plant of Posco-India Private Limited in the state.

The panel has visited several villages and met concerned stakeholders to assess the compliance of the state government and the project developers with the FRA, FCA as well Environment Protection Act and the Coastal Zone Regulatory norms as directed by the Environment Ministry.

In an order issued on Saturday, the Union Environment Ministry also asked the panel to "review compliance with statutory provisions, approvals, clearances and permissions under various statues, rules, notifications..."

On August 5, the Environment Ministry had issued an order banning acquisition of forest land for Posco's proposed plant after a panel headed by N C Saxena had made an interim report pointing to violation of the FRA.

The committee pointed out that the FRA process, to give land rights to the original forest dwellers, had still not even gone beyond the initial stages.

"In such a situation it was "incorrect and misleading" on the part of the district administration to claim that there had been no other Traditional Forest Dwellers in possession of forest land for three generations," the panel said.