Greenpeace volunteers present Jairam Ramesh (Environment Minister) with petitions signed by over 25,000 people
“It’s been over five months since the Supreme Court sought a response from the government on this violation, yet Mr. Ramesh’s Ministry has remained silent. Today, 25,000 Indians are asking him to ignore the big business interests involved and stand up for the rule of law, and the preservation of India’s environment”, said Ankit Kumar, part of the delegation that handed over the petition to Ramesh.
Documents obtained under the Right To Information Act have prima facie revealed a violation of the FC Act.(1) Officials within the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Orissa Forest Department have stated (in correspondence stretching over several years) that the entire Dhamra port area is Protected Forest land, and permission for diversion of the land was never sought from the Centre, as required under the F(C) Act, 1980. This amounts to a massive, unpunished legal violation of one of the country’s most important green laws.
“Since taking office a year ago, Ramesh has clearly stated that his job is to enforce the country’s environmental laws without fear or favour, and that big business will not be allowed to flout green laws with impunity. If he means this, he must direct his officials to immediately take a stand before the Supreme Court (2) on the forest act violation by the Dhamra port,” said Ashish Fernandes, Oceans Campaigner with Greenpeace India. The Dhamra port is a project of TATA Steel and Larsen & Toubro, and is strongly backed by Orissa’s Naveen Patnaik (BJD) government.
The official paper trail pointing out the FCA violation spans the last 10 years, from 2000 to 2009. Despite much back and forth between them, neither the MoEF nor the Orissa Forest Department took action to stop construction of the port or the unauthorised use of the forest land. The Orissa state government has wilfully ignored the violation, and the Ministry of Environment has either been powerless to act, or has deliberately looked the other way, while keeping the matter hidden from public knowledge.
The Dhamra port is one of India’s most controversial infrastructure projects, and fears have been expressed by a large number of scientists and conservationists (3) that the port will pose a long term threat to the mass nesting grounds of the endangered olive ridley sea turtles, and to the mangrove forests of the Bhitarkanika National Park. The recent evidence of the Forest Act violation on the part of the Dhamra port authorities has cast an additional shadow over the project.
There are currently 331 proposed new ports along the Indian mainland (4), an average of one port approximately every 25 km. In Orissa itself, there are ports proposed near all of the turtle mass nesting beaches. Such a massive port expansion will wreak havoc with coastal ecosystems and traditional fisheries livelihoods. Jairam Ramesh’s position on Dhamra will reflect on his commitments to regulate coastal development, made during a series of public consultations held to strengthen the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification.
This post is tagged Dhamra, FCA violation, forest, Jairam Ramesh, Port, Tata
