The Vedanta Alumina plant at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district

Bhubaneswar, April 28: The Centre has asked the Odisha government to furnish documents of the physical verification report on diversion of forestland for the expansion of the Vedanta alumina project and its captive power plant at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district.

On April 17, the Centre had sent a letter to the Odisha government to ask for documents on diversion of forestland for the expansion of the alumina refinery from a one million tonne per annum (MTPA) to a six MTPA plant as it involved forestland. However, the state government is yet to submit all the documents.

On April 26, the Centre sent a reminder to the Odisha government to ask for the documents. As per the Centre’s letter to the Odisha government, the plant area in Lanjigarh involves 28.943 hectares of gramya jungle jogya (village forest) land.

In his letter to the Odisha government, director, Union ministry of environment and forests, P.L. Ahujarai said: “The requirement of diversion of forest land under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, is yet to be resolved. The matter regarding access to the villagers has not been satisfactorily addressed.”

The Centre has also made it clear that the environmental clearance to the project, expansion of the alumina refinery plant and captive power plant from 75MW to 285MW would be accorded only after the issue on public hearing was resolved.

Vedanta Alumina submitted its reply on the issue on April 19. “The issue is an old issue. It has already been resolved in the Supreme Court. We don’t know why the issues have been raked up again. We submitted all the documents two days ago,” said a senior official of Vedanta Alumina.

The issue was repeatedly raised by the ministry of environment and forests. Vedanta Alumina had already submitted replies to all the queries, the official said. “Based on the above satisfactory submissions, the ministry of environment and forests was convinced that Vedanta Alumina is not in illegal possession of the alleged forestland and hence the issue was closed and Vedanta Alumina was given permission to keep the existing refinery running,” said the official.

A detailed report to this effect based on a joint field verification report by the revenue department and forest department was also sent to the chief conservator of forest on October 25, 2011, and it was also forwarded to the ministry of environment and forests. “Hence, there is no pending issue of gramya jungle jogya land,” the Vedanta official said.

Sources said Vedanta had complained about the tardy progress in clearing its proposals. “Despite investment of nearly Rs 50,000 crore in Odisha, the company has not received any sort of help from the Odisha government. We have to procure raw materials (bauxite) from other states, which will not be viable in the long run,” said Vedanta head honcho Mukesh Kumar.