Stop refinery work: MoEF to Vedanta

On Wednesday,The Indian Express had reported that the Ministry had ruled that the expansion work violated the existing laws.

The Lanjhigarh refinery has been caught in an environmental wrangle. The existing facility with a capacity of 1 million tonnes has been found to be in illegal occupation of 26 hectares of forest land. The company also started work on expanding the units capacity to 6 million tonnes without waiting for environmental clearance.

The MoEF had served a show-cause notice to the company in August. The company had responded in September and made a personal appearance to explain the case.

The company had pleaded that it was willing to pay the penalty for violating the law and requested the ministry not to stop work. It informed the ministry that it had already spent about Rs 5,000 crore on the expansion plan,which was about 50 per cent of the estimated cost of the project. About 40-45 per cent of construction activity has started and the progress of the project was about 50-55 per cent.

The Secretary,Forest and Environment department,Government of Orissa shall take legal action under the provisions of Environment Protection Act,1986 for violation of the EIA Notification,2006, the order said.