Vedanta in deep water

BHUBANESWAR: Even as Vedanta storm raged in the Assembly on Saturday, It is revealed that the company has not only to pay over Rs 14 crore as water dues to the State Government but also drawn huge quantity of groundwater without any agreement for the last four years.The Water Resources (WR) Department documents available with this paper reveal that Vedanta Aluminium Ltd, Jharsuguda, drew 1.782 lakh gallon water from bore-well without agreement since August 2008.The WR Department imposed six times penalty and asked Vedanta to seal all the bore-wells in September last year. As on August this year, on this count alone, Vedanta is yet to pay Rs 92.85 lakh to the Odisha Government. Besides, The Jharsuguda aluminium unit owes over Rs 10.43 crore since September 1, 2007 till August this year.The Vedanta Aluminium Ltd at Lanjigarh too is yet to pay another Rs 3.01 crore. A WR Department letter to Gridco revealed that the industry was paying water rate at 50 per cent of the amount due on the actual volume of water consumed basing on an agreement clause. It was later asked to execute a fresh agreement after the gazette notification in October last year and reminded several times.However, Vedanta asked for relaxation under the Industrial Policy Resolutions, 2001, which was rejected by the WR Department. The arrears and interest were calculated at Rs 3.01 crore.The ‘illegal’ withdrawal of groundwater by Vedanta has the green brigade up in arms. “Water is a major input or raw material for aluminium production. If the input is illegally procured, how can the final output be called legal,” said Ranjan Panda of Water Initiatives Orissa demanding a thorough audit on the issue.