Second gram sabha also rejects VAL's plan of mining in Niyamgiri hills

Economic Times, July 23, 2013
By Nageshwar Patnaik, 
BHUBANESWAR: Four days after Dongria Kondhs of Serkapadi village rejected bauxite mining in Niyamgiri hills, 33 of 36 villagers, including 23 women, of Kesarpadi in Rayagada district on Monday opposed mining in the hills, dealing another blow to Vedanta Aluminium's plans.

Gram Sabhas will be held in 10 more villages in both Rayagada and Kalahandi districts and most likely all these village councils would reject the mining proposal, a source said. The Dongria Kondhs once again made it clear that if the government uses armed force to evict them to facilitate Vedanta's bauxite mining at Niyamgiri Hills, they would rather prefer to die fighting.

However, a fresh wave of controversy has enveloped the process, raising doubts about its fairness.

Many suspect that the Dongria Kondhs are being influenced by foreign-aided non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and some "questionable" elements to speak against mining in the region. The suspicion draws credence from the fact that while 36 tribals were present at the meeting, over two hundred NGO activists were seen around the venue.

Besides, the open admission by Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti (NSS) chief Bhalachandra Sarangi that the organisation has run mock gram sabha before the second meeting on Monday also creates room for suspicion that the Kondhs who attended the first meeting might have been influenced. The activists had virtually laid siege to both the gram sabha venues. "The villagers appeared frightened to talk to journalists. It seemed that they were tutored to convey just one message - that they consider the entire mountain range as sacred. To the specific question of how mining would affect Hundaljali, their sacred hill top 10 km away, all the eleven speakers simply said that they consider the entire hill range as sacred although they worship in their own village," Lanjigarh Vikash Parishad (LVP) president Sridhar Pesnia on Monday told ET.

LVP has been supporting the mining project and its beneficiary Vedanta's alumina refinery for some time. Officials of Vedanta Aluminium Limited (VAL) and the state-ownedOdisha Mining Corporation (OMC) were conspicuous by their absence. VAL and OMC have entered into a joint-venture for bauxite mining in the region.

VAL, which has set up an alumina refinery at Lanjigarh on the foothill of Niyamgiri after being promised to get bauxite supply locally, finds it hard to run the unit due to lack of the raw material. A group of Congress MLAs on Saturday met Odisha governor SC Jamir and demanded that gram sabhas be held in all 212 villages and not just those adjoining the proposed mining site, adding more confusion to the entire process.