Outlook, Dec 23, 2010
Annoyed over the Centre's rejection of a proposal to start bauxite mining atop Niyamgiri hills in Orissa's Kalahandi district, the state government today said no tribal was living in Niyamgiri Reserve Forest area spreading over 2,100 hectare.
This was stated by Orissa Steel and Mines minister Raghunath Mohanty while replying a question in the assembly. "As per the information available with the state government, no scheduled tribe person lives in the Niyamgiri reserve forest area," he said.
He said the total area of Niyamgiri area was 30.032 km. "There was no village in Niyamgiri area also," the minister said.
Stating that an estimated 88 million tonne of bauxite was reserved in Niyamgiri hills, the minister said that two central organisations like Geological Survey of India (GSI) and Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited (MECL) had undertaken survey work in the area.
The state owned Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC) was about to start bauxite mining atop Niyamrigi hills to feed Vedanta Alumina Limited (VAL)'s refinery at Lanjigarh when the Union ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) rejected the proposal on August 24.
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