Kangaroo court Nilanjana Biswas http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2179650,curpg-1.cms
The case of two public hearings, one recently conducted on a nuclear power plant project in Kerala, and the other being planned today in Orissa on bauxite mining, is reminiscent of an incident from Douglas Adam's apocryphal book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Here, the protagonist, alarmed to discover that his house is about to be demolished to make way for a magnificent intergalactic bypass, sets about like a man deranged to do everything possible to prevent the demolition. Sadly, he finds that his case is weak. He should have tendered his views many months ago when a notice inviting objections to the demolition had been advertised by the planning office. Where was it put up, he asks, bewildered? Why, on a filing cabinet of course, in a disused lavatory in a basement office with a sign on the door that said 'Beware of the Leopard'! Had the organisers had their way, a public hearing held on October 6, 2006, in the Tirunelveli collector's office to discuss the Koodankulam nuclear power plant project in Tamil Nadu might have been similarly staged. However, activists who chanced upon an obscure public notice sent out a red alert, on the basis of which 800 people gathered to voice their opinions. The case of another public hearing coming up in Orissa is more shocking. The Orissa State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) has called for a hearing today (October 17) in the township of Tikri in south Orissa. The public hearing aims to solicit local opinion on the expansion of the Utkal Alumina International Limited (UAIL)-owned bauxite mining and refinery project in Rayagada district. However, the legality of the UAIL project is open to question. The lands earmarked at Baphlimali and Doragurha for UAILs mining project are tribal lands and protected under the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution. The Fifth Schedule disallows land transfer to non-tribal parties by any means, including lease. The Orissa government's attempts to interpret the Samatha vs State of Andhra Pradesh judgment (which upheld the constitutional protection to tribal lands) as applicable only to AP, completely ignores the fact that the Samatha judgment applies to all Fifth Schedule areas in the country. If UAIL a joint venture between Aditya Birla-led Hindalco and Canadian aluminium giant Alcan is to legally acquire such lands, it faces the challenging task of first proving that it is a tribal entity. Its land acquisition plans, in order to be deemed legal, would have to deal with the numerous gram sabha resolutions that have explicitly rejected the mining project. Environmental clearances granted for UAIL's ambitious mining plans lapsed years ago. The environment clearance that UAIL received on September 25, 1995, for setting up its three million tonne per annum (MTPA) captive bauxite mining plant in the Baphlimali hills vide letter No. J-11015/149/94-IA.II(M) lapsed after five years in 2000. Similarly, the environmental clearance received on September 27, 1995, for a one MTPA alumina refinery and a 50MW captive power plant in Doragurha vide letter No. J-11011/76/94-IA.II (I) also lapsed in the year 2000. Letters from UAIL to the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) in September 2000, June 2001, November 2002, March 2003 and June 2003 leave no doubt that the company is aware that its environmental clearances have lapsed. The MoEF, in a letter dated October 28, 2003 to its eastern regional office, indicates that UAIL must re-initiate the entire process for environmental clearance afresh. The need for fresh clearances for the project was also recorded in the interim report of the House committee on environment of the Orissa assembly, 2005-2006. This report states that regional officers of the OSPCB were "not aware that the UAIL was going ahead with the civil construction after lapse of the terms of environmental clearance. We are given to understand that these officers of the SPCB everywhere have been heavily influenced and the board can't claim to be ignorant about it".The state government has unleashed violence on protesters, in order to override constitutional protection to Fifth Schedule lands. OSPCB appears to be pulling out all stops to organise a bogus public hearing to push through a fast-track approval for the expansion of UAIL's project. UAIL needs such state government help to move on. The writer is a researcher on development issues. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala run by Global Alternate Information Applications (GAIA) To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
