Two months ago, residents of Thervoy Kandigai in Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu were set to take forward the fight to save their land. Despite their opposition, the environment ministry in August this year had given clearance to an industrial park near the village. The residents decided to challenge the …
The decision of the Union environment ministry to allow parts of the Ganga’s tributaries to flow freely in Uttarakhand, indicates there is finally some recognition of the environmental impacts of hydel projects, long hyped as clean energy producers. Dams in Uttarakhand and the Northeast have been at the centre of …
Social activists have moved court to scrap the Lavasa township project near Pune. The public interest petition filed in the Bombay High Court says the project does not have the mandatory environmental clearance from the Union environment ministry, and hence is liable to be cancelled. The petition alleged the Maharashtra …
CONSTRUCTION activities at Mundra special economic zone (SEZ) in Gujarat’s Kachchh district had begun even before the project’s public hearing, the procedural step towards environmental clearance for a project where affected people give their verdict. More than 1,000 hectares (ha) of mangrove have been destroyed by the Mundra SEZ, which …
A COMMITTEE set up by the government to investigate POSCO India’s compliance with the forest rights act (FRA) in its steel plant in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district has presented two divergent perceptions in its report. The committee, constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to examine the company’s proposal for …
On July 14, two people were killed at Sompeta in Andhra Pradesh’s Srikakulam district when the police opened fire on protesters. The people were incensed at the Andhra Pradesh government allotting a tract of Sompeta’s wetland, or beela, to private firm Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC). The company plans to build …
ON SEPTEMBER 17, the National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA) cancelled two environmental clearances: Vedanta’s bauxite mining in Niyamgiri Hills in Odisha and the National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC’s)Kotli-Behl 1B dam on the Alakananda river in Uttarakhand. A few days earlier, it had cancelled the environmental clearance for the integrated cement …
This Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment Report has been prepared based on the study of impacts due to all the possible pollution loads from the infrastructure facilities to be provided by Mundra SEZ Ltd. in the SEZ. The report has been prepared based on the guidelines recommended by the Ministry of …
RESIDENTS of Kelwan in Gujarat’s Dang district do not allow outsiders to enter their village, especially people who seem city dwellers. They take them to be government officials who would conduct surveys for a project that will submerge their land and take away the area’s water to benefit industry. Their …
AS MAHARASHTRA government pushes for Navi Mumbai as the only site for Mumbai's second airport, the environment ministry has asked for re-examination of three alternative sites. The ministry's expert appraisal committee (EAC) had expressed concerns over the project, saying it would lead to destruction of 121 hectares (ha) of mangroves, …
Setting aside environmental concerns and ignoring the threat to one of the most fertile belts in India, Uttar Pradesh government is set to start work on the eight-lane expressway along the Upper Ganga Canal. The 147.8 km expressway will connect Greater Noida in Gautam Budh Nagar district and the Uttar …
Chhattisgarh is industrialising fast: within 10 years of its creation, the state has 200 large industrial units and scores of small ones. More than 700 are on their way. A handful of units existed when this largely agricultural state was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000. Known as central …
On an industrial roller-coaster, Chhattisgarh has not once stopped to take stock of the cumulative environmental impact of the many projects. On a spree to usher more and more, the government does not consider important an analysis of a project's incremental impact combined with the effects of other projects. The …
A COMMITTEE set up by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has confirmed the existence of wetland at the thermal plant near Sompeta and the Bhavanapadu thermal plant site near Kakrapalli village in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. The committee pointed out that the 2,640 MW proposed power plant …
This expert panel report on Vedanta's bauxite mining project in Orissa submitted to MoEF on August 16, 2010 says that the company must not given permission for this project as it has illegally occupied forest land andwill also threaten survival of local tribes. <br>The proposed mining lease (PML) area, which …
Sushil Kumar Lodhi, 32, walks about Dashehari village with newspaper clippings, which carried news of his grandfather’s death. His grandfather suffered a heart attack on his way back from Lucknow. He went there to convince officials not to build a solid waste management facility in their village because it would …
The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has initiated discussion on regulatory reforms with the belief that setting up an independent and autonomous National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA) will solve all problems of governance. Misguided as the belief may be, I welcome the discussion because reform in India’s environmental regulations …
INSTANCES of revoked environmental clearances have cast doubts on the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) being carried out across the coutry. For example, clearances of Srikakulam power plant in Andhra Pradesh and the Hankol power plant in Karnataka were cancelled on July 15 and April 16, respectively. The Quality Council of …
FOUR months after the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) cleared a thermal power project in Vizianagaram district in north coastal Andhra Pradesh, two civil society group moved the National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA) challenging the decision. Their petition said MoEF gave clearance to the 2,640 MW plant based on …
* At least seven thermal power plants have been proposed in and around Srikakulam district * The companies say they are on wasteland; but many of them are in fact on fertile wetland * Two protestors were killed on July 14 in Sompeta * The location, with access to coal, …
