A minefield of controversies

Environmental activists raise slogans outside the District Collector’s office in Madurai. Photo: Special Arrangement

The Union government’s move to grant tungsten mining rights to Hindustan Zinc Limited, a Vedanta Group company, near a biodiversity heritage site in Madurai has kicked up a political row in Tamil Nadu.

The controversy erupted last month after the Union Ministry of Mines declared Hindustan Zinc as the preferred bidder of the Nayakkarpatti block, which is rich in scheelite, a primary ore of tungsten. The Nayakkarpatti block comprises six villages. One of them is Arittapatti, a notified biodiversity heritage site famous for archaeological monuments, including cave temples, sculptures, Jain symbols, Tamil Brahmi scripts, and Pancha Pandavar stone beds.

Also read | What’s the row over tungsten mining in Madurai?

Environmental activists and villagers took to the streets saying mining will not only ruin the terrain but also agriculture and their livelihoods. More than 20 panchayats of four panchayat unions in Madurai unanimously passed resolutions opposing the proposed mining.

The auction has pitted the ruling DMK and its allies against the Centre on the one hand and against the Opposition parties in the State on the other. While the DMK government says it was not consulted, the Centre claims inputs were taken from it before the auction and that no objection was raised then. The Opposition was quick to accuse the DMK of ‘duplicity.’ But the DMK maintains that it was only the Centre and not the State that cleared the mining project and has accused the Opposition of spreading disinformation. Although the Union government has allowed Vedanta to mine in an area of 2015.51 hectares, the State has not given permission, the government said.

Chief Minister M.K. Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking cancellation of the mining rights awarded to the company. He said mining will cause irreparable damage to the heritage site. “In addition, commercial mining in such densely populated villages will definitely affect the people. This has caused immense anguish among the people, who fear that their livelihood may be lost forever,” he wrote.

The Chief Minister said that the Tamil Nadu government in October 2023 had raised concerns about the auctioning of mining rights of critical and strategic minerals, but the Union Minister for Coal and Mines had rejected them, arguing that the auction cannot be withheld, in the larger interests of the country.

Last week, the State Legislative Assembly unanimously passed a special resolution demanding revocation of the award of mining rights. During the debate, Opposition leader Edappadi K. Palaniswami accused the DMK government of being inactive for the 10 months since the Union government brought amendment to the Mines and Minerals Act, 1957, with regard to the mining of critical and strategic minerals. Mr. Stalin argued that the DMK government did oppose the amendment. He added that he will not permit the mining as long as he is Chief Minister. Not to be outdone, the State BJP president, K. Annamalai, met Union Minister for Coal and Mines, seeking to call a halt to the project.

Tamil Nadu is no stranger to such controversies. In the last two decades, there has been intense and emotive opposition to various projects and striking a balance in the face of it seems to be increasingly difficult for governments in the State. 2010, farmers staged protests in the Cauvery delta region after the United Progressive Alliance government granted permission to the Great Eastern Energy Corporation Limited (GEECL) to explore coal bed methane in the Thanjavur and Tiruvarur districts. An MoU was signed by the GEECL and the DMK-led State government in 2011. In July 2013, in response to sustained protests, the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa suspended the project and followed it up with a ban in 2015.

In 2017, there were protests at Neduvasal in Pudukottai and Kadiramangalam in Thanjavur against hydrocarbon exploration in the delta. Later, when contracts were awarded to Vedanta and ONGC under the Open Acreage Licensing Programme Bid Round-I for hydrocarbon exploration in the Cauvery basin, protests broke out again. In 2020, the Cauvery delta was declared a protected agricultural zone.

In 2014, complaints about air and water pollution by the Vedanta Group’s copper smelting plant at Thoothukudi led to the closure of the unit. In May that year, 13 people were killed when the police opened fire to quell protests.