Panel to study role of mining on tribals

Vedanta Aluminium is bracing itself for a fresh round of trouble. Their plans to mine bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills in the Kalahandi district of Orissa have reached a fresh set back with the ministry of environment & forests （MoEF） having set up a four member committee headed by National Adivsory Council member C. Saxena to look

into the whole contentious issue of whether the Scheduled Tribe and Other Forest Dwellers （Recognition of Rights） Act, 2006（Forest Rights Bill） is being satisfactorily implemented.

The other member of the committee are Dr S. Parasuraman, director, Tata Institute of Social Sciences; retired IFS officer Promode Kant, and Amita Baviskar, associate professor at Delhi’s Institute of Economic Growth. This is the second committee set up by the MoEF in 2010 to ascertain that the bauxite mining should not adversely impact the Dongria Kondhs, a primitive tribe living in this region for several centuries.

The earlier committee headed by the chief conservator of forests （central） J.K. Tewari had looked into the whole issue of how the mining would impact wildlife but had not gone into the issue of how this would impact the Dongria Kondhs.