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Anil Agarwal controlled Vedanta Resources firm Sesa Sterlite got the nod of affected locals to expand capacity of its Lanjigarh refinery from one million tonne per annum (mtpa) to six mtpa at a time when the refinery is running at reduced capacity due to absence of raw material linkage.
After being denied access to bauxite deposits of Niyamgiri Hills on environmental issues, the Lanjigarh refinery is currently running at about half of its rated capacity.
But this has not deterred the company, which awaits allocation of alternate bauxite deposit by the state government to feed its refinery, has made a renewed effort to scale up the plant capacity and elicited support from locals at a public hearing conducted by the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) at Lanjigarh.
Of the nearly 1000 odd people who gathered at the public hearing, most backed the expansion plan, said Sashadhar Nayak, additional district magistrate, Kalahandi.
"There was stray opposition opposition from some but on the whole, the public hearing was successful. The affected people demanded higher compensation and stepping up of local employment", he said.
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The public hearing was conducted as Sesa Sterlite makes a fresh bid to obtain environment clearance to ramp up its refinery capacity to six mtpa. In October 2010, the Union ministry of environment & forests (MoEF) red flagged the company's expansion plan, citing that it had commenced work on expanding capacity without prior environment clearance in violation of Section 19 of the Environment Protection Act of 1986.
"The public hearing concluded successfully in a peaceful atmosphere. The company continues to hold on to its vision for overall growth of Kalahandi and expansion of the refinery will play a key role in achieving the same. People of Lanjigarh have now understood that the economic growth of the area will lead to their overall prosperity", said a spokesperson at Sesa Sterlite.
But land losers demanded compensation of Rs five lakh per acre for their ceded lands and job for at least one member of each of the displaced families.
The Rayagada-Kalahandi Landlosers' Association (RKLA) put up their demands at the public hearing.
"We have no objection to the expansion plan of the plant but we want the company should compensate the affected families adequately", said RKLA president Paramananda Nayak.
Though the demands were discussed at every meeting of the peripheral development committee meeting, they still remained unfulfilled.
Some project opponents vehemently opposed the expansion proposal, saying the company that has earlier violated environment law should not be permitted to raise refinery capacity.
K K Dave, chief operating officer, Sesa Sterlite said, "The company has moved the MoEF for increasing the refinery capacity from one mtpa to six mtpa and its captive power plant from 75 MW to 300 Mw. Around Rs 10,000-crore would be spent in the expansion plan."
"We have signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state government to get bauxite. We have identified some other sources in the state to get bauxite and hope that the problem will be sorted out soon", he added.
