MoEF rejects Vedanta’s expansion plan in Orissa

Oct 22, 2010 - Age Corespondent |

New Delhi

Rejecting Vedanta Resources expansion plan, the environment ministry has asked the London-based metals giant to maintain status quo at his Lanjigarh refinery in Orissa’s Kalahandi district. The ministry cited violation of green norms for turning down the expansion plan.
Vedanta Resources had plans to increase the production capacity of the Lanjigarh refinery from the current 1 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 6 mtpa.
The ministry in an official communication to the company on Wednesday said, “You are directed to maintain status quo at the site and no further construction activity shall be undertaken with respect to the expansion project.”
Adding to Vedanta’s woes, the ministry also asked the Orissa government to take legal action against it under the provisions of Environmental Protection Act, 1986 for violation of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification. The ministry recently also turned down Vedanta’ s proposal to mine bauxite from Niyamgiri Hills, citing threat to the ecology of the area and the Dongria Kondh tribe which lives in the hills.
The ministry’s action against Vedanta’s expansion plan came as per recommendations by N.C. Saxena panel which had alleged that Vedanta Aluminium Ltd had undertaken expansion activity of the refinery without obtaining prior permission.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/38243" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-29b2bcc4ac8a37d53c0a832b469aa842" value="form-29b2bcc4ac8a37d53c0a832b469aa842" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86848220" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>