Team News Riveting
Raipur, April 4
Chhattisgarh government has invited bids for granting mining lease to three iron ore mines, of which one in Kabirdham district comes in the eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) around Bhoramdev wildlife sanctuary.
The mineral resources department of the Chhattisgarh government has issued Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) dated February 14, 2022. It has identified three mineral blocks for the purpose of grant of Mining Lease (ML). The blocks include Dallirajhara iron ore block in Balod, Kalwar in Kanker and Kesda – Eklama – Chelikama iron ore block in Kabirdham district.
While the first two are small blocks with 80 hectares and 23.72 hectares area respectively, the Kabirdham iron ore block is spread across an area of 755.039 hectares. However, a part of the mine comes under the buffer zone and the proposal to pull it out has been pending with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
The draft notification of the ESZ around Bhoramdev wildlife sanctuary, which is spread over an area of 351.240 square kilometres, was published on April 8, 2016. The Eco-sensitive Zone is spread over an area of 109.882 square kilometres (including 87.53 square kilometres reserve or protected forest and 22.35 square kilometres revenue area).
The proposal to reduce the buffer zone from 10 km to 1 km of the sanctuary radius was earlier considered in the 22nd and 23rd ESZ meeting held on October 5, 2016 and October 19, 2016 respectively. The Chhattisgarh government did not attend the meetings.
In the 24th ESZ meeting held in February 2017, the Expert Committee deferred the proposal as the state representative mentioned that the process of receiving public comments is still under process and requires additional time for compiling the same. Since then, the proposal to reduce the ESZ from 10 km to 1 km of the sanctuary radius is pending for clearance.
According to environment experts, no mining shall be allowed in the radius of 10 km as the proposal to reduce it to 1 km has not been approved. In the given circumstances, any company bagging the contract to extract the steel making raw material from Kabirdham will have to face legal complications as a part of the block comes under the orbit of 10 km radius.
The News Riveting could not contact the state government representative for its version on the issue.
The last date of online purchase of tender documents is April 6 that can be submitted till April 7.
