South Korean steel giant POSCO’s plant in Orissa has run in to rough weather. Its Environmental clearance has been suspended by National Green Tribunal on Friday.
This interim verdict undermines India’s ability to remove the bottlenecks associated with clearance of big projects and it’s shortcomings in the coordinating mechanism between Center, State and the concerned Peoples. As earlier a high level government panel has conditionally approved it in January 2011, provided the tribunal reviews it , that was setup by Ministry of Environment and Forests.
My “mandate” is to protect the environment and ensure that transparency is maintained in awarding clearance to the projects. – Environment Minister, Ms. Jayanti Natrajan
Thinking of present policies are transparent are adequate is disillusionment in itself . What is need of hour is of a system which address most of the issues raised by the concerned parties in fair and meaningful way.Criteria on which the clearance was suspended/revoked needs to be kept in the public domain and should debated whether it is going to be help the people and also its impact fallout on the environment.
Exhausting iron ore resources and the damage done on the surrounding ecosystem needs to studied in detail, as we have seen time and again that everybody has a loss of memory once projects takes offs.
Secondly water requirement for this plant, one needs to know how Posco will create its own water resources and what all steps would be taken, that essential water supply for drinking / irrigation is not misused.
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