Goyal claims former environment minister Jayanti Natarajan blocked clearances for Nirma’s cement plant in Gujarat at Rahul’s behest.
New Delhi: Railway minister Piyush Goyal has accused Congress president-elect Rahul Gandhi of interfering in the environment ministry’s decision to grant clearances to a project, although the National Green Tribunal gave it a go-ahead later.
Citing a series of emails exchanged between Rahul and former environment minister Jayanti Natarajan, he said that the ministry took a U-turn on granting permission for Nirma’s cement plant in Gujarat.
The controversy revolves around the environment ministry’s decision to withdraw clearances granted to Nirma Limited’s cement plant on a wetland. The plant was proposed on the site of reservoir, Samadhiyala Bandhara, in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district.
In December 2008, based on a rapid environmental impact assessment (EIA), the ministry had granted permission to the plant, but revoked it two years later. Nirma moved the Gujarat High Court first, and then the apex court, against the withdrawal of the clearance.
The apex court had refused to stay the ministry’s orders and transferred the case to the National Green Tribunal. The ministry told the court that clearance initially was granted based on undisclosed and incorrect information provided by Nirma Limited.
The government argued that Nirma had referred to the project site as a “wasteland”, and not as a wetland. Even in court, Nirma had said that the site was “barren”.
Three expert committees, formed between 2008 and 2011, had reported that the project site was indeed on a waterbody.
The tribunal was to decide if Nirma deliberately concealed and/or submitted false misleading information or data to the authorities by describing the land in question as ‘wasteland’ and not as ‘wetland’.
In January 2015, the NGT stuck down the ministry’s orders and held that Nirma did not actively conceal any information while obtaining clearances.