[Reader-list] Fwd: [ESG-LIST] Scandalous Decision of Jairam Ramesh to OK POSCO project: Environment Minister disregards findings of his own Review and Statutory Clearances Committees

[asit das]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ESGINDIA <esg at esgindia.org>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:21:06 +0530
Subject: [ESG-LIST] Scandalous Decision of Jairam Ramesh to OK POSCO
project: Environment Minister disregards findings of his own Review
and Statutory Clearances Committees
To: esglist at lists.esgindia.org, bangalore_issues at lists.esgindia.org,
corporate_list at lists.esgindia.org



(This Press Release is being circulated by ESG at the request of POSCO
Pratirodh Sangram Samithi - POSCO Resistance Struggle Movement. Please
re-circulate widely)



**POSCO PRATIRODH SANGRAM SAMITI**

*Dhinkia, Nuagaon, Gadkujang; Jagatsinghpur District, Orissa*


*PRESS RELEASE: 31 January 2011*


*Scandalous Decision of Jairam Ramesh to OK POSCO project*

Environment Minister disregards findings of his own Review and Statutory
Clearances Committees


The decision of Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh to give a
comprehensive OK to the POSCO India Steel-Power Production-Captive Port
project, based on some additional conditions, is nothing short of a
total sell out to the politics of power and international capital. In a
climate where each and every Minister of the Union Government is
tumbling over with scandals, Ramesh had stood tall taking one brave
legally and ethically correct decision after another. An acid test for
him to continue this streak of decision making in the wider public
interest, keeping in view intergenerational interests as well, was about
the POSCO project. By his decision today to clear the project Ramesh has
failed not only his own legacy, but has attacked the very rule of law
based decision making that he has so often been harping on to be the
basis of his functioning.


It is well known that the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samithi, a peaceful
movement of affected communities, has been systematically raising the
deep, inter-generational and irreversible impacts of allowing this
massive project to come up in the ecologically sensitive Jagatsinghpur
district of Orissa. This struggle began with the inking of a most
controversial MOU between Orissa State and Korea's Pohang Steel (POSCO)
in 2005, proposing to establish the largest industrial project ever
conceived in human history: a 12 MTPA steel plant backed by captive
power plant; a captive port (described as "small" but designed to
receive the largest commercial ships ever built - of CAPESIZE variety);
a large township to accommodate over 100000 people; a large captive mine
in Kandadhar (600 MT for local processing and 400 MT for export over 30
years); fresh water intake from over 100 kms. away (while denying many
towns and cities drinking water) and extensive road and rail
infrastructure to support the project.


The 4000 acres of land chosen for the plant site comprise of pristine
coastal and deltaic ecosystems, with active nesting sites for the
critically endangered Olive Ridley Turtles and the Horse Shoe Crabs.
Over a third of this land comprises of coastal forests. Over 22000
people will be directly displaced by the steel plant alone, a number
that has been repeatedly disputed by Orissa Government based on its
spurious claims. Absolutely no impact assessment of any academic rigour
worth its salt or regulatory review of value considering the mega scale
of this project, has at all been conducted to support the project is
environmentally and socially useful. In fact, the so-called Rapid
Environment Impact Assessment reports prepared by M/s Dastur for POSCO
India, was only for 4 MTPA steel production and not for the entire
project as is required by law. Clearly against statutory standards and
norms, the project was still accorded environmental, forest and coastal
regulation zone clearances in 2007. In addition, the Orissa Government
engaged the /National Council for Applied Economic Research /(/NCAER) to
cook up data claiming the benefits from the project as phenomenal, which
when verified even cursorily proved to be junk statistics supporting
desperate political games promoting the project. /


*Background to the Independent Review of POSCO by Ministry of
Environment and Forests (MoEF):*


Following what is widely regarded as a politically brave but legally
correct decision of Jairam Ramesh to reject on grounds of fraud the
clearance accorded to the infamous Vedanta Bauxite project in Orissa
during 2010, the much larger POSCO issue came into focus. After all
communities affected by POSCO had been engaged for over 5 years in the
most outstanding example of peaceful resistance against such
unprecedented unjust development. Bending to reason, Mr. Ramesh agreed
to constitute a sub-Committee under the N. C. Saxena Committee reviewing
Forest Rights Act implementation, to also enquire if the POSCO project's
forest clearances were compliant with the Forests Rights Act enacted
only in 2006. Producing their report the Committee put beyond any
reasonable doubt that the forest clearances accorded were in
comprehensive violation of the Forest Rights Act. A right step taken
soon after by the Minister was to stay the forest clearance accorded - a
decision taken that was taken at a time when brutal dislocation of
forest dwelling communities was underway by the Orissa Government.


Subsequently, Ramesh ordered an independent enquiry into all aspects of
the project's clearance coordinated by Ms. Meena Gupta, former MoEF
Environment Secretary, with Mr. Devendra Pandey (IFS, Retd.), former
Director of Forest Survey of India, Mr. V. Suresh, Advocate and PUCL
activist and Dr. Urmila Pingle, expert on tribal affairs, as members.
Following three months of deliberate and extensive consultations, and
also detailed investigation into all aspects of the clearances accorded,
and on the basis of detailed verification of compliance review files the
Committee by a majority decision (3:1) comprehensively rejected all the
clearances granted to the project. Ms. Meena Gupta who stood up for the
POSCO project, dubiously recommended additional conditions to adjust
against serious statutory violations and fraud in the decision making
process -- a line of thinking that Jairam Ramesh now scandalously
subscribes to.


In the subsequent review by Statutory Appraisal Committees of the MoEF,
the Committees reviewing the Forest and Coastal Clearances recommended
withdrawal of clearances granted. The only Committee that proposed a
go-ahead was the one reviewing the environmental impacts under the EIA
Notification. It was for Ramesh to now decide on the right steps to be
taken to correct this gross injustice and irregularities in
environmental decision making. In the face of extensive burden of proof
of fraud involved in securing clearances for the POSCO project, the
matter should legally have been to withdraw clearances accorded -- as in
the Vedanta case. This was the time to test the honesty of a man to
stand up and uphold Constitutional and Ethical values, regardless of any
and all forms of pressures. Jairam Ramesh has miserably failed this test.


*Jairam Ramesh's pro-POSCO decision:*


The report presented today by Jairam Ramesh is nothing but a
capitulation to corrupt forces both within India and abroad. After all
POSCO, though a Korean company, is held largely by American
corporations, and no less than Warren Buffet holds 5% stake in this
transnational corporation. For the single largest project FDI investment
in India at 2005 prices (Rs. 51,000 crores or USD 12 billion capital
cost), analysis reveal that this investment can be recovered in less
than a decade given the pittance of a royalty that POSCO will pay for
iron ore extracted. (Rs. 30/tonne at the official ore valuation of Rs.
300/tonne, compared with the commercial value of Rs. 7,000/tonne). It is
to make such unprecedented profits from the plunder of India's natural
resources that POSCO demanded a coastal location for its super large
CAPESIZE ships to be berthed to cart away our precious iron ore. What
India would be left with is the toxic residue of its dirty ore
processing, while the refined ore (perhaps not even the finished steel)
would be exported to Korea and elsewhere to add more value to POSCO's
profits. This is not merely a flight of the nation's natural wealth but
also a massive planned political exercise for erosion of financial
resources with questionable legal sanction.


The POSCO episode, simply stated, shockingly resembles operations of the
East India Company, only that this time it is aided not by any Victorian
empire, but democratically elected Governments in Orissa and the Centre.
Just as Mahatma Gandhi led India's valiant battle against exploitation
of India by the British Empire, it is time now for PPSS to actively
challenge this gross violation of Constitutional Rights, Statutes and
Norms, dubiously legitimised by Jairam Ramesh ignoring substantive
findings of Enquiry Committees that he himselft constituted.


The struggle against POSCO in Jagatsinghpur will continue. The struggle
against exploitation of tribal, farming and fishing communities of
Orissa will continue. The battle to expose corruption in the Orissa
Government and the Union Government (especially MoEF) will continue.


This is a struggle to expose the most corrupt and socially and
environmentally disastrous deal ever legitimised in India's history.





Abhay Sahoo

President

09556666552

	

Prashant Paikray

Spokesperson

09437571547

prashantpaikray at gmail.com <mailto:prashantpaikray at gmail.com>

POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samithi


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