MoEF Clears Land For Lafarge

By Krishnadas Rajagopal

New Delhi, Jul 27 : In its affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has given the green signal for diversion of 116.589 hectares of Meghalaya forest land for mining limestone by French cement major Lafarge.

In April, the ministry’s environmental clearance in favor of Lafarge had backfired. The MoEF had conducted a field check of the mining site located deep inside Nongtroi Hills and come back with a rather sketchy report endorsing immediate environmental clearance for Lafarge to resume its mining operations.

An unimpressed Green Bench, which had shut down Lafarge’s mining activities on February 9 this year, called the environmental clearance “hasty” and asked the ministry to come back with a “proper study (of environmental impact) by specialized agencies”.

Today’s affidavit says that the ministry’s expert appraisal committee for environmental appraisal of mining projects has expressed satisfaction about the “environmental safeguards” in place. The case is listed before the Green Bench led by Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia on Friday.

“It is submitted that the expert appraisal committee, in its meeting convened on June 29, 2010, observed that the conditions and environmental safeguards stipulated by the MoEF while according clearance as contained in their letter dated August 9, 2001 and supplemented on April 19, 2010 (based on report of the Site Visit Committee) are comprehensive enough to mitigate adverse impacts of the project and protect environment, if implemented effectively,” stated the affidavit, signed by Assistant Inspector General of Forests H C Chaudhary.