by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, News
New Delhi : In a set-back to Vedanta, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to order the re-opening of its Sterlite Copper Smelting plant located in Tamil Nadu as it set-aside the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) December 15 order on the grounds of jurisdiction.
Setting aside the NGT order on maintainability, a bench of Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Vineet Saran asked Vedanta to approach the High Court and since the Thoothukudi plant has been locked up for quite some time, they could urge the High Court Chief Justice for an expeditious hearing and interim relief.
The plant was shut down permanently on May 28, 2018, when the state government had ordered the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) to seal and “permanently” close the plant in the wake of protests over pollution concerns.
The protests had turned violent, resulting in the death of 13 people in police firing on May 22-23 in Tuticorin, officially called the Thoothukudi port city.
The top court verdict came on the TNPCB’s plea against the December 15, 2018, NGT order directing it to give its consent.
The grant of consent by the state pollution control board was subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions by Vedanta.
The TNPCB had in the course of arguments asserted that the copper smelting plant was the cause of near irreversible ground water pollution and thus could not be allowed to resume operation.
On the other hand, Vedanta had described as “political” the decision to put the plant under the lock.
Vedanta had contended that the high level ground water pollution was not limited just to Thoothukudi alone, and that similar situation existed in other parts of the state.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : To test Punjab’s claims of having supported 21 farmers to manage stubble in a sustainable manner without burning, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Wednesday directed the state to bring these farmers before it on Friday.
Earlier this month, the Tribunal had rapped the Punjab government for not incentivising the farmers or assisting them to manage the crop residue, which is estimated to be around 35 million tonnes, and is currently being set ablaze by farmers to make up for the short window between winter and summer crops.
On Wednesday, as the government informed the Tribunal that it had been helping the farmers to manage the residue without burning and has adopted Kalar Majri village in Patiala district where it has also provided assistance to 21 farmers, the NGT said: “Present those 21 farmers that you claim to have supported and incentivise to mange the residue without burning. Bring them here on Friday.”
The bench headed by NGT chief, Justice Swatanter Kumar also heard from accounts of the state’s farmers who rebuffed the state government’s claims as mere eyewash and alleged that it was not doing anything to to help or carried out an awareness campaign against stubble burning.
The farmers from Bhartiya Kisan Union-Rajwal added that the government rather approached them in the first week of September – the harvest season, with “warnings and threats” and not assistance.
They also claimed that the operational cost of this is too high and the state government is neither providing them with machinery nor any other kind of assistance.
On Wednesday, over 100 farmers had gathered here outside NGT. They also rebuffed the claims that reverse ploughing to mix the residue with lower layer of soil helps in managing it, as the NGT had suggested.
“This creates fungus and some farmers who had earlier taken this step met losses as the production dropped,” Balbeer Singh Rajewal, Bharatiya Kisan Union-Rajewal president, who apprised the Tribunal about the farmers’ issues, told IANS.
He said that to manage the stubble per acre requires at least Rs 6,500, which includes diesel and labour cost, and expensive machinery is also needed.
“Farmers neither have that kind of money nor they have time. From the first week of November, wheat sowing will begin and by October mid, fields are to be prepared for sowing potato by some farmers.
“We had been asking the government that the stubble is ready, come and collect it. No one comes to collect it, they rather showed up as the harvest began and warned us with penalties,” Rajewal said.
The NGT had earlier fixed the environment penalty amount per incident of crop burning to be paid by small land owners having less than two acres of land at Rs 2,500, medium land owners holding over two acres and less than five acres at Rs 5,000 and those owning over five acres at Rs 15,000.
With stubble burning in neighbouring states having direct impact on Delhi’s air quality, which is currently deteriorating on daily basis, the NGT had in 2015 asked Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to curb this practice and later asked them to incentivise the small farmers to manage the stubble.
—IANS