The four member committee set up by Ministry of Environment and Forest under former Union environment secretary Meena Gupta to look into issues of violation of forest right act and other statutory clearances relating to the Posco’s mega steel project in Orissa will submit its report to the MoEF on October 18.
This will be followed by a meeting of the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) on October 25 where the findings of the Meena Gupta panel will be discussed and a final view will be taken on the fate of the project.
“The Meena Gupta committee will submit its report on October 18 and FAC will meet on October 25 to discuss the report. Orissa government will also be given an opportunity to put its side before FAC”, said Union environment and forest minister, Jairam Ramesh.
The four member panel, set up on July 28, had visited Orissa twice in August and September during which it had made field surveys at the Posco site and held discussions with the locals and government officials on various issues related to the project and its captive port at Jatadhari near Paradip.
It may be noted the Meena Gupta panel was constituted after the NC Saxena committee set up to look into forest rights act (FRA) violation in different parts of the country found instances of FRA violation in the Posco site. On the recommendation of the panel, the MoEF had ordered stoppage of all work including land acquisition at the project site on August 5.
The Meena Gupta committee was initially given a mandate to investigate and ascertain 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 look into the status of the implementation of the Rehabilitation and Resettlement provisions with respect to the project affected people.
However, the terms of reference of the Meena Gupta committee was later expanded to 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 was asked to review the compliance of the project and the state authorities with statutory provisions, approvals, clearances and permission under various statutes, rules and notification etc.
During interaction with the panel members at the project site, the anti-Posco brigade, through oral and documentary submission, pleaded that there were hundreds of Other Traditional Forest Dwellers who had been denied their rights under FRA. On the other hand, the project supporters argued that there were neither any tribal 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.
