Villagers? body challenges green nod for Lafarge in SC

In another attempt to scuttle cement gaint Lafarge?s plan to resume mining limestone from the Meghalaya hills, another plea has been moved in the Supreme Court opposing the revised environmental and forest clearances granted to the French major.

Challenging the revised environmental and forest clearances granted to Lafarge Umium Mining (LUMPL) on April 19 and April 22 this year, respectively, Shella Action Committee, which is a body of villagers, said that there was no scope of revised clearances under the scheme of the environment impact assessment (EIA) Notification after Lafarge had found to having obtained approvals by concealing and giving false information.

Earlier on February 5, the apex court had restrained Lafarge from continuing mining operations for extracting limestone in Meghalaya to manufacture cement at the Lafarge Surma Cement project at Chhatak, Sunamganj, in Bangladesh. The plant is wholly dependent on limestone extracted from the East Khasi Hills in Meghalaya.

The voluntary body has accused the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) of applying altogether different yardstick while revoking clearance to Vedanta Alumina to mine bauxite in Orissa for its proposed $800 million project expected to produce one million tonne of alumina per year.

The ministry after accepting the Sexana Committe’s recommendations to revoke environmental clearance to Vedanta’s refinery has issued show cause to the company in August this year. ? There is no reason why a different standard should be applied in respect of the mining company in the present case when it is established from the records that LMMPL had obtained the environmental clearance by misleading the ministry by falsifying and concealing information about the nature/designation of land acquired in collusion of the officials of the state government,? the application stated.

Shella has alleged that Lafarge had obtained environmental clearance by misrepresenting to the Indian government that the land was a ?wasteland and non-forest area consisting mainly of barren land, and rocks? whereas the area had dense forests. It also alleged that the company had illegally transferred tribal land protected under the sixth schedule of the Constitution to itself and mortgaged it in favour of foreign banks to secure a loan of $153 million.

Shella said ?instead of prosecuting the offenders under the Environment Protection Act 1986, it is shocking to see that MoEF is granting a revised environment clearance in violation of the statutory provisions.? It said that the ministry can not be permitted to selectively apply the law laid down under Rule 4 of the EIA notification that states that concealing factual data or submission of false misleading data would lead to the project being rejected. It further said that forest clearance was not permissible without settlement of the tribal land and forest rights under the laws.