EIA for Jindal coal mine in Chhattisgarh ignores threats
 |
| Demanding to be heard: Following violence and lathicharge, the venue of public hearing was deserted, but the hearing was not cancelled. (Below) People blocked roads in protest after their objections were not heard at the meeting |
The 4 million tonnes per annum opencast mine project called Gare IV/6 is sited in Tamnar block in highly industrialized Raigarh. During public hearing on January 5, about a hundred tribal people were injured in police lathicharge.People allege that Jindal supporters provoked violence when they raised objections to the eia report and the hearing that was organized later than the stipulated time and without informing the panchayats, even though Tamnar falls under the Panchayat Extension to the Schedule Areas Act, 1996. People are angry that the hearing continued despite the fact that most of the people gathered for discussion had left after the lathicharge. The same day an fir was filed in Tamnar police station against unknown people for damaging property at the hearing venue. Interestingly, the complainant was not the state pollution control board, which organized the public hearing, but the company. People have since resorted to road blockades and sit-in protests, demanding that the hearing be quashed. But the board's regional officer, R R Singh, said the public hearing was over and the decision to clear the project rested with the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Five villages, Lamdarha, Saraitola, Gare, Khamharia and Karwahi, will be the most affected. "The project will directly affect more than 8,000 people, but the eia report claims that only five households will be displaced. It is not giving the true picture,' says Ram Kumar Agrawal, former mla of Raigarh. There are other important issues on which the report is either silent or misleading. The report studies the core zone, which is the area leased for mining, and the buffer zone, which includes the area around the core extending up to 10 km. Of the 381.42 hectare (ha) core, 93.64 ha is forestland, which will be destroyed completely. In the buffer zone, around 30 per cent is forestland, which will be indirectly affected. Given that these forests are home to threatened Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 animals such as bear, leopard, fox and pea fowl, an assessment of impact on biodiversity is crucial. But the eia report, a copy of which is with Down To Earth , states that the Schedule I animals are present in the buffer zone and not in the core area. This amounts to saying that these animals avoid the core area while roaming all over the surrounding jungles.
The biggest weakness of the eia is that it does not study the cumulative impact of the various industries present in the region. Impact on biodiversity cannot be studied in isolation. The project's buffer zone is ecologically sensitive and industrialized. In addition to Jindal's 1,000 mw thermal power plant that is in operation and a proposed 300 mw power plant, there are a number of coal mines in operation in the area and many others are in the pipeline.
The eia report fails to quantify the combined impact of industries on air quality, forest, groundwater and siltation of rivers.
The project also proposes to install a coal washery of 4 million tonnes per annum in the core area. According to the eia notification 2006, "If coal washeries are located within the mining area the proposal shall be appraised together with the mining proposal.' But the eia report does not quantify the impacts of the washery. It does not even answer how much water will be required for washing coal, from where the water will be sourced and how the wastewater will be disposed of.
Impact on Kelo river
Mining requires removal of the topsoil in the core area, but the information on topsoil given in the report is contradictory. In the section "Overburden removal: truck and shovel', its thickness is given as 1 metre and the total quantity of topsoil to be removed 2.1 million cubic metres. In "Topsoil management', the given thickness is 0.5 m and the total quantity, 1.8 million cu m. According to Centre for Science Environment estimates, 0.5 m thickness of topsoil will generate around 1.91 million cu m of soil and 1 m thickness will generate 3.8 million cu m. Moreover, the topsoil storage site is a flood plain on the bank of the Kelo river and the area receives heavy rainfall. Therefore, the risk of soil run-off and river siltation is high. Besides, mining operations will begin in an area that slopes towards the river, further adding to the risk of siltation. The eia report is silent on river siltation and its impact on dams. The Kelo drains into the Mahanadi, which is dammed at Hirakud, around 50 km from the project.
| Numbed: An injured hospitalized after clashes |
 |