THOOTHUKKUDI: Activists have urged that the public hearing proposed on October 1, relating to the mining of atomic minerals at eight villages in Kanniyakumari district, should be held in each village instead of taking place at the Padmanabhapuram revenue division office.
After the Ministry of Mines gave the go-ahead to Indian Rare Earths (India) Limited (IREL) to mine atomic minerals in eight different villages, spanning 1,144 hectares, the state government also issued a Letter of Intent (LoI).
IREL must obtain environmental clearance (EC) from the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) to mine atomic minerals such as monazite, zircon, ilmenite, rutile, sillimanite and garnet from Keezhmidalam A, Midalam B, Enayamputhuenthurai, Ezhudesam-A, Ezhudesam B, Ezhudesam C, Kollengode A and Kollengode B.
The mining lease proposals cover an area of 1,144.06 hectares, including 1,064.2 hectares of private land, falling under five villages in Killiyoor taluk.
The total area of the proposed mining lease area has been divided into Block A and Block B.
According to sources, the estimated reserves in the proposed mining lease area are 59.88 million tonnes, which will feed the Manavalakurichi Mineral Separation Plant as raw material for 40 years, at the rate of 1.5 million tonnes per annum.
It may be noted that IREL, which functions under the Department of Atomic Energy, supplies zircon and monazite for the atomic energy programmes in the country, sources said.
In his complaint to the MoEF, activist SP Muthuraman said a majority of the mining area is owned by private persons, and hence, public hearings must be conducted in each village to elicit a better public opinion.
"Conducting a common public hearing for all the villages at the RDO office on a single day will amount to stifling the voices and concerns of the people, and will end up in favour of one party," he said.
Meanwhile, the Beach Mineral Producers Association, a forum of private beach sand miners complained to the Kanniyakumari collector against the IREL for proposing a public hearing for one of their members' private land spread over 75 acres in Midalam, Keelmidalam and Keelkulam.
However, the Madras High Court had ruled that a third party cannot procure mining leases without the owner's consent, and besides, the mining operations shall be carried out in third-party patta lands by obtaining consent from pattadars concerned as per the second proviso of Rule 6(5) of the AMCR, 2016.
A former mineral miner had alleged that the central government’s unit preferred to mark the geographic coordinates, instead of the survey numbers, to hoodwink the public. The former director of geology and mining has informed that the industries department, in a letter dated August 24, 2005, had noted that of 1073.78 hectares applied by IREL for reservation, only 115.78 hectares contain sandy deposits while the rest are under the possession of residential houses, places of worships, roads, rivers and tanks, he pointed out.
Meanwhile, IREL sources said that they have formulated a Land Leasing Policy — Concession Option Scheme — for mining on private patta land for 11 months. The land will be returned to the landowners with lease compensation, the source said.