Posco India has denied violation of any law or procedure for obtaining any government clearance for its Rs 54,000 crore mega steel project in Orissa.
Responding to the media reports on findings of Meena Gupta committee report, the company in a press release stated, “we understand that there could be differences in points of view held by different stakeholders about the adequacy or sufficiency of processes followed to obtain various clearances, but the company strongly denies allegations of violation on the basis of such differences in viewpoints”.
The release said, after five long years of MoU, the company has not been able to commence any operation owing to its commitment to obtain all necessary statutory clearances before start of work. “Due to unexpected delay in initiating project work, certain circumstances, laws and legal procedures including interpretations have been changing, causing the differences in perception of different stakeholders”, it said.
Reiterating the company’s commitment to ethical practices, the release said, “We have maintained that we shall set high standards of environment protection and corporate governance better than the existing situation and we remain firm on our commitment”.
It may be noted the Meena Gupta panel, which apart from Gupta comprised three other members, had raised concerns over procedural flaws in implementation of the Forest Right Act at the Posco site and for obtaining environment and CRZ clearances for the project.While three members of the committee, Urmila Pingle, Devendra Pandey, V Suresh have recommended for cancellation of forest and environment clearance given to the project, the committee leader and former environment secretary Meena Gupta has suggested for a fresh comprehensive Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) for the project while allowing it to retain the clearances.
This difference of opinion had led to filing of two separate reports by the committee.