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Mahan gets green tribunal notice for MP coal block

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Wednesday sought replies from Mahan Coal limited, a subsidiary of Essar Power and Hindalco

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Wednesday sought replies from Mahan Coal limited, a subsidiary of Essar Power and Hindalco, on a plea saying that a recent order approving diversion of 967 hectares of forest land in Madhya Pradesh is in violation of forest and environment laws.

Earlier in April 2006, the ministry of coal had allocated the Mahan coal block jointly to Essar Power and Hindalco (in the ratio of 60:40) for their end-use projects in Singrauli district, namely Essar’s power project and Hindalco’s aluminium smelter and captive power project.

Both the projects, constructed at a total investment of close to Rs 20,000 crore, had started operations in 2013.

The plea, filed by advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, contends that the Madhya Pradesh forest department on March 5 had granted approval for the use of coal block in a dense forest area in Singrauli against the recommendations of the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) and to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.

?Approval for the diversion of forest land and the impugned order is bad in law and facts and highly prejudicial to the dense forest, wildlife, ecology and livelihood of the tribals…the Mahan coal block is located in the ecologically important Singrauli forest division and would require felling of more than 5,12,780 trees,? the petition states.

The petition states that in July 2011, a sub-committee was formed for the purpose of inspection of the site to be allocated to the company and that after carrying out its investigation, the sub-committee came to the conclusion that permission to divert forest land cannot be granted.

The plea claims that the MP government has gone ahead and given a no-objection certificate to Mahan on the basis of gram sabha meetings in which signatures of people and village residents were forged.

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First published on: 24-04-2014 at 05:02 IST
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