The policy deep-freeze and land acquisition woes have resulted in over 500 projects, mostly power and steel, being shelved or put on hold during 2011-12, entailing a total investment of over Rs 5,00,000 crore. According to CMIE estimates, during the year Rs 1,70,000 crore worth of investment projects had been abandoned by project developers, and another Rs 3,30,000 crore worth were stalled on account of various procedural issues. The core sectors, led...

The National Green Tribunal's decision to suspend the environmental clearance given to POSCO vindicates the project's critics. ON March 30, the Principal Bench of the newly formed National Green Tribunal (NGT) delivered a momentous decision suspending the environmental clearance (EC) given to the South Korean transnational corporation, POSCO, to set up an integrated steel plant at Paradip in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district. The former Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam...

So what if it was the largest-ever FDI in India? The law finally caught up with it on 30 March 2012, when the National Green Tribunal suspended POSCO’s environmental clearance and ordered a fresh review. We can celebrate the outcome in this day and cynical age: It is still possible, though not easy, to get environmental justice in this country. Since June 2005, when the agreement between the Government of Orissa...

-The Times of India   KENDRAPADA: Farmers of seaside villages of Jagatsinghpur are jubiliant after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) suspended the environment clearance for POSCO. "Last year, the authorities acquired my 16 decimals of betel vine for only Rs 65,000 at Noliasahi village in Nuagaon gram panchayat," said Ranjan Jena (45) of Noliasahi, adding that he wished that he got his land back. He was also very curious if the government will...

The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India has found that the Naveen Patnaik government has ‘misused' the Land Acquisition Act for acquiring land for several big industrial projects, including the proposed mega steel plant by South Korean steel major POSCO. “Emergency Provisions of Section 17 (4) were misused and applied arbitrarily even without indicating detailed justification for the same and without fulfilment of prescribed conditions,” the CAG has stated. The CAG report was...