Enviornment Ministry clear Jindal Steel project in Orissa

Environment Ministry has cleared the Jindal Steel and Power Ltd's integrated steel plant in Orissa with certain conditions involving mitigation of pollution and earmarking 2% of net profit towards social responsibility.

Congress MP Navin Jindal's integrated steel plant at Angul, which had hit the green hurdle, was cleared by the Ministry after accepting the explanation given by the company in response to its showcause notice issued on November 22, 2010.

Laying down the conditions, the Ministry on February 10 directed the company to earmark two per cent of its net profit for Corporate Social Responsibilities. It also asked the latter to take continuous monitoring of emissions and display the data on its website.

The Ministry made it clear that the company will have to inform it for necessary action in case the scope of the project changed.

In its conditions, the Ministry directed the company to "install the coal gasification technology using non-coking coal for the coke oven plant and adopt the dry quenching of coke to conserve water and mitigate pollution."
According to the conditionalities laid down by the Ministry, the fly ash generated from various activities is to be used in cement and brick manufacturing as well as in back filling of mined out area.

The Ministry, in its notice had given 15 days time to the company to respond to as to why environmental clearance for the 6 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) integrated steel plant and 1000 MV captive power plant should not be revoked.

Personal hearing on the case was held on December 29 and later, the company also submitted additional documents, based on which the Ministry did analysis of the project.