Vedanta accused of further serious violations in India
Published by MAC on 2012-07-24Source: Samaja, Business Standard, Down to Earth
Not once, not twice, but three times in a week!
It's been two months weeks since we posted anything critical on mines operated by what's been dubbed the "world's worst mining company". See: Goan farmers fear environmental disaster, courtesy Vedanta
 |
| A displaced Baiga woman works as a day labourer at Vedanta’s Bodai-Daldali bauxite mine. Photo: Sayantan Bera |
But, sooner or later, we can rely on London's Vedanta plc to arouse the ire of its many opponents by committing further criminal offences.
On 17th July 2012, the leading Oriya- language news daily, Samaja, reported that the company had illegally dumped fly (coal) ash and excavated soil onto forest land at its Jharsaguda aluminium smelting complex in Orissa.
This wasn't the first, or only, time charges have been levelled against the plant.
In December 2011, it was claimed that the UK-listed company had been illegally withdrawing huge amounts of water to serve the Jharsaguda complex. See: Indian officials accused of conniving with Vedanta to avoid water penalties
In September 2010, Vedanta was also accused of operating the smelter, and nine captive power units, without securing permits from Orissa's State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB). See: Everything Vedanta touches turns to ashes!
Eighteen months earlier, in April 2009, leading Indian environmental campaigner Prafulla Samantara - backed by local villagers - filed petitions before the OSPCB and central Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).
He sought to show that Vedanta had started construction work on the aluminium smelter and several thermal power plants, without obtaining mandatory environmental clearances.
Mr Samantara claimed that a village road and some private land were "being forcibly used by the company for transportation" while "a large amount of vegetation has been cleared for this purpose". See: Vedanta fined, as Indian judge declares environmental activism vital to combat "mankind's folly”
These sites, said Mr Samantara, were very close to the Katikela Reserve Forest - now allegedly being used by Vedanta for mass dumping of toxic fly ash.
Are the tribal people bygones?
Only two days earlier on 15th July 2012, Sayantan Bera, writing for Indian ecology magazine Down To Earth, revealed that employees of Vedanta's BALCO subsidiary have illegally felled trees, and the company has wilfully betrayed Baiga tribespeople, at and around its Bodai-Daldali bauxite mine in Chhattisgarh state.
The Indian government's Environmental Action Committee (EAC), in 2007, stridently condemned Vedanta-BALCO's practices, and its disregard for Baiga families who were removed to make way for the mine.
Two years later, the EAC re-affirmed its earlier decisions and urged the MoEF to refuse Vedanta-BALCO permission to expand the mine. See: Vedanta Damned
In March 2010, Vedanta secured a permit for expansion, but on a number of conditions.
One of the main conditions was that Vedanta fully re-settle 261 project-affected Baiga families in five new villages by May that year.
According to Syantan Bera, in a recent message to MAC, seventy-nine families have still not been resettled, nor has the company paid anything to those families which do not possess land titles.
Land grab - for a song
Last week, too, a petition was filed in a Chhattisgarh court, accusing a former state Chief minister, and others, of granting Vedanta-BALCO access to government land, at a give-away price.
The complaint, made by a former minister, says that, as a result of collusion with officials, the company ended up securing land worth around US$40 million at today's prices, while paying out only some US$ 5,300 at the time.
According to claims made in 2005, the company had acquired the land illegally in the first place. See: BALCO rejects land grab allegations
Vedanta Factory is Dumping Fly Ash on forest land
Samaja - Sambalpur Edition
17 July 2012
Vedanta Company in Jharsuguda has been dumping its flyash and destroying the forest near Katikela village which has been exposed recently.
The company has dumped ash over a hundred acres of forest land, illegally using it as a dumping yard. It was discovered that the company has acquired about 2,000 acres of land for its ash pond near the village.
The first ash-pond construction has been completed in the mean time and, by way of slurry pipes, the ash is being dumped into the ashpond.
To construct the ash pond, millions of cubic meters of soil, excavated from the site, has also been dumped on the forest land, and in the process forest land outside the Vedanta area is also getting destroyed, with millions of tons of soil being dumped in the forest area.
The forest dept and pollution control board have closed their eyes, and no action is being taken against this illegal environmental destruction, which is massive.
Local officials of Vedanta have declined to give any comment on the issue.
(Thanks to our Indian colleague, Sankar Pani, for the English translation of this article).
Baigas in exile
Once called lords of the jungle, the Chhattisgarh tribals are being evicted without adequate relief
Sayantan Bera
Down To Earth
15-31 July 2012
In the monsoon of 2009, Rittu Baiga, along with 245 other families, made his way out of the Achanakmar tiger reserve, soon after it was notified under Project Tiger. To give more room to the tiger, the forest department facilitated their exit from the Bilaspur forest division in Chhattisgarh.
For a year they lived in temporary huts outside the reserve until concrete colonies were erected. Three years later, the 7.5-centimetre-thick concrete roofs leak, the undulating forestland families received as compensation yield little crop, and the ceiling fans in Rittu's house are ornamental without electricity connection. They are yet to get land titles for the farm and homestead plots they received as part of the compensation package.
But Rittu remains unaware of the raw deal. Under the Project Tiger, when a sanctuary is notified a tiger reserve by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), each family is relocated outside the core area and is entitled to a compensation of Rs 10 lakh. They can have the compensation in cash or as developed land and housing plus a cash allowance.
The six villages relocated from Achanakmar received a paltry sum of Rs 50,000 per family. The forest department says it spent the remaining Rs 9.5 lakh per family, in building concrete homes, preparing the two hectare land given to each family for agriculture, constructing roads and providing water and electricity. Rittu was never asked whether he wants the cash option or developed land and houses.
The department relocated him in forestland that essentially came free of cost. "Were the families settled in revenue land, they would have had better access to development programmes like employment guarantee schemes. The forest department misused the relocation money," alleges Rashmi Dwivedi of non-profit Baiga Mahapanchayat. "The Baiga needs access to forests more than electricity, roads or piped water."
The housing colonies, neat concrete boxes stacked next to each other, are in sharp contrast to the otherwise bustling forest villages. Framed against the walls, 50-year-old Rittu looks lost. He spent Rs 30,000 of the compensation money on tractors to level his farmland and got a yield just enough for four months. He is displaced to a denuded area where his forest-based livelihood is not available. Earlier, he would collect sal leaves used for making plates, tendu leaves used to roll bidis and bamboo for making household utensils. Selling these was the source of cash, while paddy, maize and millet plots in the jungle ensured food year round.
The department plans to relocate 19 more villages from Achanakmar tiger reserve. But by the department's own admission, Baigas are not the sole source of disturbance to the tigers. Hemant Pandey, deputy director of the tiger reserve, says, "The 70 km Achanakmar-Amarkantak state highway that cuts through the tiger reserve is the main source of disturbance. Relocating villages is not enough."
The Baiga and his bewar
Once a semi-nomadic tribe and now numbering about 400,000, the Baiga lived on the Maikal Hill ranges running along the border of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. They practiced bewar or slash and burn cultivation with a belief that tilling the soil with a plough is akin to scratching the breast of mother Earth. They would clear a patch of forest, burn it, and on the fertile ashes sow 16 varieties of seed, mostly minor millets-an enviable diversity of native crops. After three crop cycles, the plot was left to grow back into a forest while the family moved to another patch.
Alienated from the forest and without enough yield, the Baigas are facing severe malnourishment. Alienated from the forest and without enough yield, the Baigas are facing severe malnourishment
In 1890 the colonial British administration prohibited bewar in all forest barring a few villages in the Maikal Hills. The argument was slash and burn cultivation led to depleting of forests. "In areas where bewar was permitted the forests are still dense whereas they have vanished in areas where shifting cultivation was banned," says Naresh Biswas, author of Bewar Swaraj that deals with traditional farm practices of the Baiga.
Dongru Baiga was so named as he was born in a dongar, a patch of land where bewar is practised. After the forest department took up commercial plantation inside the forest in the late 1970s and stopped the residents from doing bewar, Dongru's family moved out of Ghameri village in the core area of Achanakmar along with 55 other families in search of cultivable land.
They settled on the forest fringes but the department demolished their houses for 12 times-between 1979 and 2001-asking them to go back to deep forests. After Achanakmar was declared a tiger reserve, the department asked them to relocate, this time further away from the forest. But having seen the state of relocated families, Dongru is reluctant to budge.
Unlike Ghameri which stood its ground, most villages gave in. Baiga Mahapanchayat claims to have resettled 390 villages in the past 20 years. These villages were evicted from the forests of Kabirdham and Bilaspur for mining, tiger conservation and tourism. Many moved out due to oppression by the forest department and banning of bewar.
Forest department demolished Dongru Baiga's house 12 times. He now refuses to relocateForest department demolished Dongru Baiga's house 12 times. He now refuses to relocate
Dongru spoke of mangiya, a variety of finger millet known for its use after childbirth. Its high iron and calcium content helps mothers in quick recovery, so they could be in the fields three days after delivery. The millet is no longer grown and the youngsters around know nothing about it. With bewar, the Baiga lost its native crop diversity. The Baiga, once known as the "lord of the jungle", has been reduced to its official designation-one among the 72 "primitive" tribal groups in India.
Little or no compensation
Adjoining the Bilaspur forest division is Bhoramdeo sanctuary in Kabirdham. The sanctuary falls in the wildlife corridor connecting the Kanha tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh with Achanakmar. In early 2003, nine villages were displaced from the sanctuary. They now live on encroached forestland outside the sanctuary. None of the families were compensated monetarily or with cultivable land, though verbal promises were made.
"The forest department threatened they will let loose wild animals and book us in animal poaching cases. They demolished our huts and took away food grains," says Karan Baiga, now an illegal encroacher.
Vishwesh Roy, divisional forest officer of Kabirdham, says, "Since the corridor is not recognised by NTCA there are no funds for relocation. We only requested the villagers to move outside the sanctuary where they can have better facilities."
The department applied to NTCA for recognising Bhoramdeo as a tiger corridor in March 2012. Increasing pressure of tourism in Kanha forces tigers to migrate to Bhoramdeo, especially during pregnancy. The bauxite mines of Vedanta on the corridor add to the disturbance, Roy adds.
A displaced Baiga woman works as a daily wager in Vedanta's bauxite mineA displaced Baiga woman works as a daily wager in Vedanta's bauxite mine
Vedanta's BALCO bauxite mines began operations in Bodai Daldali hills of Kabirdham in 2003. The project officially displaced 262 families and an unestimated number were made to evacuate their hilltop villages since they did not have land titles. In 2007 and 2009 Vedanta proposed a fivefold expansion of the mines. It was rejected by the expert appraisal committee of the Union environment ministry on grounds of shoddy relief and rehabilitation.
A winding road, which offers majestic views of the Maikal Hills and the surrounding forest, leads to the hilltop of Daldali mines. Long lines of truck loaded with bauxite lead to Vedanta's Korba plant in Chhattisgarh. On the way to the mines, Down To Earth found security guards loading felled trees onto a truck. Between 2003 and 2011, Bilaspur and Kabirdham districts lost 4,600 ha of forest cover, according to the Forest Survey of India. During this period, Chhattisgarh lost 32,400 ha of forest cover.
Of the 262 families listed in Vedanta's records, 71 families were paid compensation. Those with land titles were given Rs 1 lakh per acre (0.4 ha) and 405 sq metres for building houses.
Those without land records were simply thrown out by paying a token amount. Dev Singh Baiga is one of them. Vedanta paid him a paltry Rs 4,000 and he settled in Indrapani by occupying forestland.
Bigro Bai, a tribal woman was cheated of the Rs 5 lakh compensation by middlemen working for Vedanta. "I got the cheque. They took me to a bank but did not get the money," she says. Down To Earth contacted the head of mines for BALCO, corporate social responsibility manager and the public relations officer for details on the current status of rehabilitation. None were willing to speak.
While travelling for the story, this correspondent saw light bulbs in Baiga houses remained illuminated even during the daytime. They are yet to comprehend the fact that the bulb needs to be switched on and off. When asked about electricity bill, a resident explained: "How can we pay for light? The sun sets because nature wants us to retire."
Decade of displacement
1970-2010: Twenty-eight villages displaced from Kanha Tiger Reserve, now in Madhya Pradesh
2000-03: Ten villages, comprising 262 families, displaced for Vedanta's bauxite mines in Bodai-Daldali. Only 71 families have received compensation so far. Non-profit Baiga Mahapanchayat says 150 families without land records were also evicted for the mines
Since 2003: Nine villages, comprising 220 households, displaced from Bhoramdeo Sanctuary in Kabirdham district. No official records exist
Since 2009: Six villages, comprising 245 families, displaced from the Achanakmar Tiger Reserve. Nineteen more villages to be displaced
BALCO heads for a land hurdle in Chhattisgarh
Business Standard
21 July 2012
Kolkata/ Raipur - Vedanta-controlled Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (Balco) is heading for a fresh trouble as a complain petition has been filed in the court seeking investigation into the land given to it by the Chhattisgarh government, allegedly at a throw away price.
The complain petition under section 156(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), read with section 200, has been filed in the court of First Class Magistrate B P Varma here in Raipur district court. The petition has been filed by former minister and senior Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel.
"In the complain, we have sought to register an offence against chief minister Raman Singh, the then chief secretary P Joy Oommen and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Balco, Gunjan Gupta besides probing the land deal that has caused huge loss to the state exchequer,"Baghel's lawyer G M Ahluwalia told Business Standard.
The matter is related to regularizing the land that Balco had allegedly encroached for its aluminium facility located in Korba district, Ahluwalia said, adding that the state government had given away the land to the company at premium of just Rs 200 and lease rate of Rs 20, per acre. The land price remained the same [as] when Balco was given land for the plant way back in 1968, he added.
Baghel said that they had earlier submitted a memorandum to the Governor, Shekhar Dutt requesting to sanction prosecution of Chief Minister Raman Singh, then chief secretary P Joy Oommen and officials concerned of the revenue department.
According to the petitioner, on the initiative of Balco for an out-of-court settlement of the case pertaining to encroaching about 1200 acres of government land, the chief minister and the then chief secretary took the initiative to present the case before the state cabinet."In one single day on April 27, 2010, the related files were cleared from eight departments," Ahluwalia said.
In the complaint, Baghel underlined that the land (about 1200 acres) was regularized and allotted to Balco for Rs 200 per acre the rate that existed in 1968. "In the deal, the state had to bear a huge revenue loss of more than Rs 200 crore, [around US$40 million]" his lawyer said.
The court had posted the next hearing for August 4.
The Balco spokesperson refused to comment on the matter when contacted.