After Posco India, Vedanta Aluminium, and Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL), Essar Steel has come under fire from green activists for alleged violation of environmental and forest laws.
Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO), on the basis of documents obtained under the Right to Information Act, has alleged that Essar Steel Orissa (ESOL), a subsidiary of Essar Steel, has violated the Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) norms, by carrying out sand dredging work at Paradip. ESOL is setting up a six-million tonne per annum steel plant and a 225-megawatt captive power plant over 1,925 acres in Paradip. The investment outlay is Rs 10,721 crore.
WSO also accused the company of violating the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 by illegally starting construction work on non-forest land since 2008 without prior forest clearance. The project needs 18.83 hectares (46.52 acres) of forest land.
“ESOL was accorded environmental clearance on May 29, 2008. The company had concealed information while obtaining environment clearance since it never disclosed that Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) areas were involved. ESOL has been dredging sand in CRZ area of the Mahanadi river, but has failed to apply for CRZ clearance. A site inspection in 2008 by Pollution Control Board revealed that the company was filling up the site with sand dredged from the river,” said Biswajit Mohanty, secretary of WSO.
“The company has also violated the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. A total of 18.83 hectares of forest land is required. The company has illegally started work since 2008 on non-forest lands without obtaining forest clearance, which is illegal. The forest clearance diversion proposal and application was filed only in December 2009 with the state government and is yet to be forwarded to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests,” he said.
WSO demanded that the environment ministry should keep in abeyance the environmental clearance granted to the company in May 2008, as the clearance was illegally obtained by concealing the fact that the area came under CRZ.
The ministry should order the company to stop all activities there till the inquiry into violations of CRZ rules and Forest Conservation Act, 1980, was completed, said Mohanty.
However, the company denied all allegations. “Our project does not fall under the CRZ area. Moreover, ESOL has obtained the permission of the water resources department of the state government for dredging sand from the Mahanadi river. We have not started construction work on non-forest land as has been alleged by WSO,” a company source told Business Standard.