Green, tribal ministries’ stand on Vedanta case in SC to determine other projects’ fate

Times of India, Jan 21, 2013
NEW DELHI: The joint stand that environment ministry and the tribal affairs ministry takes in the critical Vedanta bauxite mining case in the Supreme Court on Monday is set to decide the fate of hundreds of other projects that require forest lands as well as the rights of tribals under UPA's flagship Forest Rights Act (FRA).

The government had earlier bound itself in knots in an affidavit in the Supreme Court by stating that tribals' forests cannot be used for any other development project. It had cited the argument while defending its decision to scrap the Vedanta mining project in Odisha, but the position now threatens hundreds of other ventures that require forestlands over which tribals have either claimed or already got rights under the FRA.



In the court case, the government moved away from its existing middle path policy, which allows it to give forest lands to private developers in tribal areas only after getting the affected gram sabhas' nod.
  It was the lack of this consent and other environmental failures that the government had cited while blocking Vedanta's mining proposal in Odisha. The move had also led to the pro-tribal image building of Congress heir apparent Rahul Gandhi.




But, the government's hard position in the court case — arguing forest lands handed back to tribals under the FRA can be used only for wildlife conservation — had made even a SC bench to ask the Centre to file its comprehensive views on the Act.

The confusion in the government's position deepened when the PMO asked the two ministries concerned to dilute the need for consent even further in the forest clearance process. The two ministries were caught in a cleft. For instance, at one level, they were contemplating dilution of tribal concerns in the clearance business and at the other taking a hard position while defending the order to cancel Vedanta's project citing violation of tribal rights.

The ministries have so far withheld taking a decision on the dilution of the clearance procedures, even though the PMO had asked them to do so by December 31, 2012.