The four member committee headed by Meena Gupta, former Union environment secretary, today held discussions with the officials of the forest and environment department on the issue of alleged violations of Forest Rights Act (FRA) at the Posco project site.
The committee was constituted by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to look into allegations of FRA at the project site near Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district.
The ministry had recently expanded the terms of reference of the Meena Gupta committee.
The order amending the terms of reference of the committee said that it will now review the compliance of the project with Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), Coastal regulation Zone and other clearances granted by MoEF and other Central, state and local authorities.
Besides, it will review the compliance of the project and the state authorities with statutory provisions, approvals, clearances and permission under various statutes, rules and notification etc.
These responsibilities come in addition to the earlier terms of reference of the committee which included investigation and ascertainment of the status of the implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Traditional Forest Dwellers (Regulation of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 in and around the forest land within the project site and investigation and ascertainment of the status of the implementation of the Rehabilitation and Resettlement provisions with respect to the project affected people.
The Meena Gupta committee had visited the Posco project site for two days on August 27 and 28 and interacted with both project supporters and opponents and collected their views on violation of Forest Rights Act in the area.
While the anti-Posco brigade, through oral and documentary submission, pleaded before the committee to be treated as Other Traditional Forest Dwellers as per the provisions of FRA, the project supporters argued that their were neither any tribal in the area nor any villager dependent on the forest land for livelihood for three generations to attract FRA provisions.
The other members of the team were Urmila Pingle, an expert on tribal issues, Devendra Pandey, a Rtd IFS officer and V. Suresh, an advocate of Madras High Court.
