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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | How Modi Government Helped Vedanta's Sterlite Plant Bypass Environmental Norms -Nitin Sethi

How Modi Government Helped Vedanta's Sterlite Plant Bypass Environmental Norms -Nitin Sethi

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published Published on May 25, 2018   modified Modified on May 25, 2018
-TheWire.in/ Business Standard

New Delhi: The controversial expansion of Vedanta’s 1,200 tonnes per day copper smelter in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu has been stayed by the high court on May 23 after at least 11 people protesting against the plant were shot dead by state police. The court has ordered that the company consult people before building the plant – something the company claimed it was legally not required to do.

Vedanta claims it had legally got an environmental clearance from the Union government to expand the smelter to double the capacity without consulting people. A perusal of the Union environment ministry’s and several court records show the NDA government made an interpretation to green regulations in December 2014, which helped particular plants such as that of Vedanta’s at Tuticorin to be built without consulting people of the project-affected area.

This exception in the environmental safety regulations was made on the request of various industries, show court and government documents reviewed by Business Standard. The exception to the rules was carved out through orders of the then environment minister and called a ‘clarification’. This clarification would, in the months ahead, allow Vedanta and several others to start constructing their plants, such as the one in Tuticorin, without public consultations. This interpretation by the NDA government was fortuitous for companies because the environment ministry under the UPA government had insisted in May 2014 that projects such as Vedanta’s in Tuticorin were required by law to first go through public consultations.

In 2016, the National Green Tribunal found the December orders of the NDA government, which favoured Vedanta, to be illegal. It had to go to the point of threatening bailable orders against the environment ministry officials in the case to divulge information on the matter. Ministry officials said rescinding the government’s December 2014 orders would adversely impact many projects.

Eventually, the NGT quashed the December 2014 orders. On the NGT’s instructions, the ministry had to pass fresh orders clearly stating that projects in industrial parks without environmental clearances needed to conduct public hearings.

But by then, Vedanta had secured an extension of the green clearance to its expansion project in Tuticorin without the need for a public hearing.

It is citing this 2016 ruling of the National Green Tribunal and other facts that came to light during the case, that the high court on Wednesday has ordered Vedanta to stop its expansion plans in track and go back to first consult the people.

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TheWire.in/ Business Standard, 24 May, 2018, https://thewire.in/environment/how-modi-government-helped-vedantas-sterlite-plant-bypass-environmental-norms/amp/


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