The Supreme Court today asked the Union ministry of environment and forests to consider within two weeks the conditions proposed for resumption of limestone mining by Lafarge, the French cement company, in Meghalaya for its factory in Bangladesh.
The SC had imposed a ban on the mining on February 5, after a probe into the legality of the issue. In a statement issued today, Lafarge welcomed the court’s directive.
The ministry will have to consider the five conditions proposed to the court by the Attorney General on Friday, which have been stiffened in some respects. It may also impose its own, additional, conditions. The court would, then, consider on April 26 the question of lifting the stay on Lafarge’s mining.
The order was passed by a bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan after hearing Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati, Lafarge counsel F S Nariman and the court-appointed lawyer, U U Lalit.
There were minor improvements in the five proposals made by the Attorney General last week. Now the firm, which had been transporting limestone from Meghalaya to the cement plant in Bangladesh through a 17-km conveyor belt, would deposit Rs 55 crore, with nine per cent interest effective from April 1, 2007. The earlier proposal was for three per cent less.
Another change by the AG is that the agency would deposit with the proposed special purpose vehicle (SPV), Rs 90 per tonne of limestone mined, instead of the Rs 80 suggested earlier. With these changes, Friday’s proposals are to be considered by the ministry, to be then reported on at the next hearing.
The ministry is to take its decision under the Forest Conservation Act, and after taking into consideration all the conditions proposed on Friday for diversion of 116 hectares of forest land. It may, as mentioned earlier, impose more conditions if it finds these necessary. The ministry’s decision has to be approved by the Supreme Court.
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In the hearing lasting two hours, the French firm’s counsel strongly contended that it had obtained all the clearances required in 2001 and it was only in 2006 that questions began to be raised about forest coverage. He read out long passages from official reports, in which the company was allowed to operate its mining activities. He also asserted that the local people were happy with the mining, as they were getting money, jobs, schools and hospitals. Nariman emphasised that, in fact, the local people were “anxious” that the mining would stop at the instance of the court and they would lose all these benefits.
However, Lalit, the counsel appointed by the court to assist it, pointed to the report of the SC’s own centrally empowered committee. It had said the original approval was granted on the assumption that 100 acres in question was a non-forest area. Instead, in 2006, the committee found the project was right “in the middle of virgin and natural forest” with trees as tall as 60 ft felled and lying on the ground, showing a girth of four feet. The committee had “ulterior motive” behind the whole affair and underlined the “flagrant violation of the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act”. It also stated that the attitude of the officials responsible were “reprehensible”.
The government is anxious that mining resume, since the matter involves Bangladesh, too. The AG reiterated, as he’d done earlier, that he could not “overemphasise the huge sensitivity involving a friendly relationship with a neighbouring country”. Apart from the amounts expected in the SPV, like Rs 55 crore now and Rs 15 crore every year, the government would also get royalty on the limestone excavated, he emphasized. He warned that a new environment impact assessment would take at least two years, whereas the forest clearance could be processed within two weeks. However, he did not press for resumption of mining, unlike the earlier hearings.
The cement unit in question is the Lafarge Surma Cement project at Chhatak, Sunamganj, Bangladesh. The stay will continue till the next hearing, when the ministry’s response will be considered.