Vedanta rejection at Niyamgiri won't be the last; jinx of bauxite mining may continue

Economic Times, Aug 8, 2013
By MEERA MOHANTY, ET Bureau | 8 Aug, 2013, 04.00AM IST
When the voting stops on August 19, the scorecard, which is currently 9-0, may well read 12-0. An emphatic and embarrassing rejection of state and corporate plans to mine bauxite atop the Niyam Dongar hilltop in the Kalahandi district of Odisha.

Twelve tribal villages that call this mountainrange home have, in all likelihood, secured their religious rights over the hill and its natural resources, including 72 million tonnes of bauxite that the $15 billion mining giant Vedanta Resources has been trying to get its hands on to convert to alumina at its neighbouring refinery.

India's highest court had ordered this referendum in April, after noting that project considerations had not taken into account whether scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers had any rights of worship over the Niyamgiri hills.

There may never have been as much at stake, or such media scrutiny, or judicial intervention, but the unanimous message coming from the gram sabhas being held since July 18 is not new: Odisha's troubled bauxite journey must reassess its challenges. And it could start by revisiting its history.

This is not the first time a plan to mine bauxite in eastern India—home to about 70% of the country's reserves of the mineral used to make aluminium—has collided with a conflation of interests, and stalled or crumbled. Chances are it won't be the last, and will continue to ring-fence the industry's expansion.

"It is a matter of great irony that Odisha has some of the best minerals of all kinds, particularly the finest bauxite, but there's not a single new mine in the last 30 years," says SK Roongta, managing director of Vedanta Aluminium.

In the period that Roongta refers to, six major bauxite projects have found themselves tangled in conflict. These six, which are the gateway to about 30% of India's bauxite reserves of 3.5 billion tonnes, all lie in the eastern belt of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, passing through some of the poorest parts of the country.

The story of each reveals the details and nuances of the jinx that bauxite mining has come to be. It's not just a Vedanta that is opposed; every aluminium company wanting to secure raw material, be it from the private sector (Hindalco, JSW, etc) or the public sector (Nalco), has felt the backlash. The actors on the other side vary: locals, a Norwegian NGO, a minister, the state itself. The reasons have differed: from religious significance to rehabilitation, from perceived intrusion to policy revision.

And all this goes back to the beginning of the short history of this mineral in India.