Senior officers of the Orissa government, including Revenue Divisional Commissioner Pradipto Kumar Mohapatra and Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) Priyanath Padhi, appeared before the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Environment Ministry on Monday to answer queries on the findings of the Meena Gupta committee, which has listed a number of violations in the POSCO project in its report.
“We have explained the correct position on every aspect of the project. We informed the panel that there has not been any violation of law, either related to the Forest Rights Act (FRA) or in the process of granting of environmental clearance,” Padhi later told The Indian Express.
The officials were quizzed on the implementation of FRA, relief and rehabilitation efforts and the process followed for obtaining environmental clearance for the US $12 billion project. The Meena Gupta committee, which incidentally had submitted two separate reports owing to differences among its members, had found problems in all these aspects.
The FAC is just one of the several expert committees of the Ministry that the two reports of the Gupta panel has been referred to for suggesting further course of action. The other committees are still to discuss the reports. A final decision would come only after each of these committees comes back with its recommendations.
Sources said since a major part of the objections in the Gupta committee report relate to forest rights, it is possible that the Tribal Affairs Ministry — responsible for implementation of the FRA — would also be consulted in the matter.
At Monday’s meeting, Orissa officials defended their stated positions and said the findings of the committee were “erroneous”. They also questioned the expertise of the committee in challenging the approvals granted by expert panels of the Environment Ministry.
District collector of Jagatsinghpur, where the project is to be located, Narayana Chandra Jena said the state government was still open to any suggestions to satisfy any aggrieved party.