Mr Sharma in his letter to the minister for forests and environment, Mr Jayram Ramesh, said he had written him a letter earlier asking to investigate how MoEF has erroneously issued a “revalidation" letter for an old environment clearance (EC) that lapsed in 2001, on the ground that the company informed the MoEF that it started construction work well before the EC lapsed. He said Hinduja's own report to MoEF in October 2010 said that it had not started work at the site, contradicting its own earlier report to MoEF.
The company had obviously misled MoEF or someone in MOEF had colluded with the company to fraudulently revalidate the EC, Mr Sharma alleged. Though a request was made to probe, for some strange reasons, the ministry has been non-responsive, he added. According to news reports, the company has taken up construction in 600 acre out of 1,100 acre according its own admission whereas 730 acre out of 1,100 acre is in CRZ. Read the full report here.
Source: Deccan Chronicle, Visakhapatnam.
