Central panel wants detailed plan on resettlement
PANAJI
The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has directed M/s JSW Steel Ltd to submit an action plan for shifting the habitations from the Surla-Sonshi mining lease area.
EAC, during its meeting held last month, recommended the grant of Terms of Reference (ToR) to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study to JSW for its Surla-Sonshi iron ore mineral block and for a Wet Beneficiation Plant at Surla, Cudnem and Sonus-Vonvoliem villages of Bicholim and Sattari talukas.
Based on the EIA, the State Pollution Authority will have to conduct a public hearing for obtaining environmental clearance (EC) for the project.
JSW, which has already received prior environmental clearance for its Cudnem mineral block, had approached the Ministry last year for the grant of ToR for the proposed mineral block (IX) Surla-Sonshi for the production of 1.1 million tonnes of iron ore per annum and 2.59 million tonnes of waste. It has also sought ToR for the installation of a Wet Beneficiation Plant.
The EAC, while recommending ToR, has directed the PP to include mitigation measures for the control of air and water pollution, to submit the action plan for shifting the habitations from the mine lease area, an ecology restoration plan, year-wise sequence of mining operations and plan for backfilling, transportation routes, etc., in its EIA report apart from the impact on the environment, ecology, wildlife, etc.
Interestingly, the proposal has no mention of the habitats within the mineral block.
According to the proposal, the total mining lease area is 254.51 ha, of which 58.2175 ha is private land, 171.3115 ha is government land and 24.981 ha is forest land. The PP stated that the instant lease area lies at a distance of 3.74 km from the ESZ of Madei Wildlife Sanctuary.
The firm intends to take up mechanised opencast mining using Heavy Earth Mining Machinery with no drilling and blasting. The total geological reserve of the area is around 65.728 MT, of which the mineable resource is 10.02 MT. At present, there are a total of 8 active waste dumps with 20.18 MT of waste spread across a 9.124 ha area at the mine site.
The PP said that Stage-II Forest Clearance for the entire area was granted in favour of M/s V.S. Dempo and Co. Pvt. Ltd, which initially owned the mining lease way back in 2009, and accordingly an application for the transfer of the FC to M/s JSW Steel Limited was submitted in June this year and the approval is awaited.
JSW Steel Limited has proposed the installation of a Beneficiation Plant within the Mine Lease over an area of 3.6 ha to utilise low-grade and siliceous iron ore resources for enrichment from a feed grade of 45% Fe content to produce four different concentrate products, i.e., 52%, 54%, 63% and 50%. The overall product contains 54.25% Fe with a yield of 65%. The Iron Ore Beneficiation Plant will operate at 350 TPH for 10 hours a day and 320 working days.
