By IANS
Bhubaneswar : The government regulatory agencies have bent rules and procedures to accord clearance to the proposed steel project of Posco-India in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district, a wildlife expert said here Tuesday.
Indian companies face numerous hurdles and delays in obtaining routine clearances for even small projects.
However, government agencies have facilitated the South Korea steel major to bypass important procedural issues and written objections recorded by several government officials, said Biswajit Mohanty, secretary of the Wildlife Society of Orissa.
A top state forest official said the government has facilitated the company because it is the largest foreign direct investment in India and will usher economic development in the state. The government has not overlooked environment factors, he said on condition of anonymity.
However, Mohanty alleged officials of the ministry of environment and forests (MOEF) here pointed out the need to carry out detailed impact studies. But the government ignored it.
“The Orissa forest department recommended to the central government for environment clearance on June 26 this year. The content in the letter of recommendations is full of half truths,” he alleged.
“It justified the locality of the project at port town of Paradeep on specious grounds. The truth is that the beaches at Jatadhar Muhan near Paradeep are a significant Olive Ridley nesting ground,” he said.
“Environment impact assessment (EIA) studies by the government are inadequate since, instead of carrying out a study of the offshore sea currents for a period of one year, the study is for a brief period of 34 days,” he said.
“Dredging of a huge quantity of 28 million cubic metres of sand to set up the Jatadhar Muhan port would be disastrous for the food chain of the Olive Ridleys, who come to the state every year for nesting,” he said.
“The impact assessment study of the port construction on the adjoining beaches has been done only up to 5 km. Irreversible and adverse impacts are expected on the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary, which is about 30 km from the site where the company proposed to build a port,” he said.
Citing official comments on the rapid EIA of the captive port at Jatadhari Muhan creek sent by the Chief Conservator of Forests of the Eastern India Regional Office, MOEF, Bhubaneswar, to the central government in August 2006, Mohanty said that it had been pointed out in the comments that the company has carried out a rapid EIA for the port for three months.
It is insufficient for appraisal, he said.
“The inadequacy of the rapid EIA study was objected to by a senior professor who is a member of State Coastal Zone Management Authority, who pointed out the three month data to document all biodiversity components is grossly inadequate, looking at the seasonal life cycles of many organisms.”
“MOEF Bhubaneswar has strongly recommended carrying out impact studies on Olive Ridley sea turtles which remain on the Orissa coast for at least six months of the year,” he said.
“Despite absence of such turtle impact studies, the Forest Advisory Committee of the government of India has granted forest clearance recently,” he said.
“Due to continuing hostility by local villagers, no official could visit the project site to verify forest data. An aerial site inspection was done by helicopter, which is a departure from the process under the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980,” he pointed out.