Over 3,141 big trees need to be felled for the iron ore mining project of Nagpur’s Jayaswal Neco Industries Limited (JNIL).The company has been granted forest clearance by the MoEFCC for 17.56 hectare land, equivalent to 44 football fields, for iron ore mining in Manegaon under the Amgaon forest range of Gondia district.
JNIL plans to mine 20,000 TPA iron ore. The total mining lease area includes 37.34 hectare (19.78 ha revenue land and 17.56 ha protected forest). “The area is rich in wildlife and has Schedule-I animal species,” said wildlife conservationists.
Manegaon Gram Panchayat is opposed to mining as the villagers claim they are dependent on the forest for their needs. The gram sabha has already passed a resolution on May 17, 2022, against the mine. As per sarpanch Prakash Meshram, gram panchayat NOC has not been taken by the company.
On January 9, 2024, villagers stopped the tree felling operation by the forest department to pave way for mining by the company. Manegaon Village Panchayat also filed a writ petition in the court through their counsel Manish Jeswani and VS Kukday, challenging the final approval granted by the state government on May 11, 2023. The MoEFCC approval was granted on August 16, 2022.
The petitioner Manegaon panchayat counsels invited the attention of the high court to Rule 9(6)(d)(i) of the Forest (Conservation) Rules, 2022, which deals with the life of the ‘in-principle’ approval.
The said rule says, “Where compliance of condition imposed in the in-principle approval is awaited from the state government or Union territory administration for more than two years, the approval shall be deemed to be null and void.”
The petitioner contended that the company was granted Stage-I forest clearance under Section 2 of the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) 1980 with stipulated conditions in March 2009. However, after a gap of 13 years, the proposal came alive. Whereas the state should have completed the compliances in two years, which was not done.
Hence, in the backdrop of the said submissions, the high court issued notices to the respondents returnable on March 7, 2024.