The industry has not taken adequate steps on the problems identified by the Board Officials during their visit to the industry from 2nd to 4th, Nov., 2007. It has also not complied to the points specified in Show Cause Notice and Directions issued by the Board. Some more problems like seepage/leakage from Dirty Water Pond, adjacent to Vanshadhara River have been identified.
Kalahandi is one of the most economically backward districts of Orissa. However, it has rich deposits of bauxite over its hill ranges. Recently the State Government and its corporation have entered into agreement with certain industrial houses for creating infrastructure to extract bauxite and process it.
M/s. Vedanta Aluminium Ltd. has filed an allplication before this Court seeking clearance of the proposal for use of 723.343 ha of land (including 58.943 ha of reserve forest land)in Lanjigarh Tehsil of Kalahandi District for setting up Alumia Refinery. The matter has been pending since 6.3.04.
A cholera outbreak has ravaged Orissa's tribal-dominated Kalahandi, Koraput and Rayagada districts since early August. The state government says the region has reported 119 deaths so far. About
the Orissa government has withdrawn proposals to create two new elephant reserves in the state. Its proposals to create the South Orissa elephant reserve and the Baitarani elephant reserves under
Indigenous people have lived in the lush forests of Niyamgiri mountain, Orissa, India, for generations. Now, local tribal families are living in fear for their future due to the arrival of a combined bauxite mining and alumina refinery project in the heart of their ancestral domain by an Indian subsidiary of the UK mining and metals company, Vedanta Resources plc.
BHUBANESWAR: Thousands of activists of Green Kalahandi on Saturday began a five-day a road blockade agitation against the one million tonne capacity alumina refinery project of Vedanta Alumina Limited. A total of 45 agitators were arrested by the Kalahandi police.
Vedanta's use of natural resources has raked up many controversies. While deposing before the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), a monitoring body set up by the Supreme Court on forest matters, the company had delinked its alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Orissa's Kalahandi district and the associated bauxite mining at Niyamgiri Hills. The company said that it would shift the refinery to non-forest land and would thus require environmental clearance.
