SAIL gets Ramesh nod for mining in Jharkhand forest

A mellowed union minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday went against the advice of his ministry's own expert body to give permission to Steel Authority of India to divert 595 hectares of forest land in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand to extract iron ore, a decision considered crucial for meeting SAIL's future demand of the raw material.

The permission allows SAIL to use the 194 hectares that was already being mined earlier from its Chiria mines as well as 401 hectares of additional land, which together add up to a quarter of the total Chiria iron ore reserves in the Saranda forests of Jharkhand.

In rejecting the advice of the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), Jairam has cited "broader national interest" and the importance of these mines to the future of SAIL, a 'Maharatna' public sector company "with a good track record of corporate social responsibility (CSR)" which "deserves special treatment". The FAC had, earlier this month, argued that Chiria was host to Asia's largest and best sal forests and also an important elephant habitat and that mining in this area could not be allowed.

This is also the second major project this month after Korean steelmaker Posco's project in Orissa that Ramesh has passed in spite of the FAC recommending that permission not be given. The Chiria mine already has environmental clearance.

The mine covers around 2,376 hectares, which constitutes around 3 per cent of the Saranda forest area, and the permission for a period of 20 years was "sought for diversion of a total 595 ha, which is 25 per cent of the Chiria mine area".

Rakesh Singh, an environmental scientist who has researched the region as part of a PhD thesis, said there would be a significant loss of forest that would be ecologically unsustainable.