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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Interview of NC Saxena

Interview of NC Saxena

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published Published on Aug 25, 2010   modified Modified on Aug 25, 2010


National Advisory Council member and former bureaucrat N C Saxena headed the four member panel which recommended that Orissa Mining Corporation (the company that was to supply bauxite ore to Vedanta’s Lanjigarh plant) not be permitted to mine on Niyamgiri hill. ET spoke to Mr Saxena a few hours after the environment ministry accepted his committee’s recommendations. Excerpts from the interview:

What are the implications of today’s decision? Some sections of corporate India feel that laws such as the Forest Rights Act (FRA) are making it impossible to mine anywhere at all in India?

It’s very easy to mine in this country once you take the consent of the local communities. They are rational people. If the project is beneficial for them, they will agree. But, look at the development tribals get from these projects. Local communities get less than 5% of the jobs created by these projects. In the last 30-40 years, people displaced by projects have become destitute, not better off. The men have become rickshaw-pullers and the women have become sex workers. Is this what we mean by mainstreaming them? Industry should sit down and think about why its image is so poor.

What about the role played by the state and the local administration in the poor implementation of the FRA?

The administration has totally withdrawn. I asked one of the local collectors (the Vedanta project straddles Rayagada and Kalahandi districts) what the locals felt about the project and he did not know if they were happy with it or not.

The Vedanta bauxite project was first cleared by government bodies. It took a lot of protests and specially-appointed committees to roll that decision back. What does this say about the mechanism of clearing projects in the country?

The company has been playing games with the government. Instead of applying for clearances in one go, it has been applying in parts. In the process, there has been a continuous violation of law. But then, before 2009, even the environment ministry saw environment laws not as something to be implemented, but as a source for rent-seeking. This is very unfortunate.

Vedanta has been talking about the CSR work it does in Kalahandi. What did your committee see while on the site?

It is an eyewash. The scale is very small. Further, the benefits of most of what they do goes to communities in the foothills. None of it goes to the Dongria Kondhs who are the most affected by the project. Even the Kutia Kondhs, who live on the foothills and have been beneficiaries of the CSR activities are upset due to reasons like high pollution.


The Economic Times, 25 August, 2010, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Interviews/articleshow/6429436.cms


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