Vedanta sees Niyamgiri ghost over alternate bauxite mine

Green activists see red over latest Odisha move

The green activists who stalled the Niyamgiri mining project, choking bauxite supply to Vedanta’s Lanjigarh alumina refinery are peeved with Odisha government’s recent move to make available bauxite to the company from an alternate mine in Kodingamali, Koraput district.

“The issues that we fought for at Niyamgiri are also relevant for Kodingamali, a forested hill range saddled by tribal inhabitations,” said Prafulla Samantray, head of Lok Shakti Abhiyan, a social organisation.

Samantray along with Biswajit Mohanty, managing trustee of Wild Society of Odisha and member, Transparency International had moved the Supreme Court against the proposal to mine bauxite at Niyamgiri, leading to scrapping of the project.

They had sought the court’s intervention on the ground that mining at Niyamgiri would damage some rare variety of flora and fauna and water sources emanating from the hill range, apart from violating the religious and tribal rights of the local population. Except religious rights, the rest of the issues hold good for Kodingamali, Samantray argued.

He said, the state government should first hold gram sabhas and comply with the provisions of the Forest Rights Act before making any move to mine bauxite at Kodingamali.

He said the government should also assess the possible impact of mining on local flora and fauna and water sources that contribute to the river network in south Odisha. Stating that mining at nearby Panchpatmali hills has already affected the water flow in Kolab river, he said, no further mining should be allowed in the area for next 50 to 60 years, till the bauxite reserve in Panchpatmali, currently being extracted by public sector company Nalco, gets exhausted.

“We will oppose the mining plan at Kodingamali if it leads to any tribal displacement,” said Bhala Chandra Sarangi, a tribal activist. The same is echoed by Bhagaban Majhi, president, Prakrutika Sampad Surakhya Parishad, a civil action group. “We had stiffly protested an earlier attempt to mine bauxite at Kodingamali. We will relaunch the agitation if a fresh attempt is made to start mining there,” Majhi said.

The government, on the other hand, is hopeful of conducting mining at Kodingamali without much hassle. “The tribals at Kodingamali do not belong to particularly vulnerable tribal groups, unlike the Dongria Kondhs at Niyamgiri who had made the agitation a very sensitive issue,” said a senior government official. He said the forest clearance for the mining project at Kodingamali, whose lease stands in the name of state-owned Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), is at an advanced stage and the government can get requisite statutory clearances within a year.

Vedanta is keeping its fingers crossed over the possibility of a Niyamgiri-like agitation in Kodingamali. The company is in dire straits, following scrapping of the Niyamgiri mining project and is running its Lanjigarh refinery a very low capacity by procuring bauxite from outside Odisha.

“The state government’s announcement to supply us bauxite from Kodingamali even before going for forest diversion proposal and getting the statutory clearances in place might alert the NGOs to rally around and prop up an agitation there,” said a Vedanta executive.

The state steel and mines minister, Prafulla Mallick, had recently announced that the state government is mulling to supply bauxite to beleaguered Lanjigarh alumina refinery of Vedanta from the OMC-owned Kodingamali deposits spread over 428.31 hectares.