Praveen Bhargav, trustee of Wildlife First, a non-government organisation, has written to senior officers of the Forest Department in Karnataka appealing to them to reject the Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited’s (KIOCL) proposal seeking ex-post facto forest clearance for the illegal submergence of forest land in Kudremukh.
Mr. Bhargav, in his letter to senior officials, said it was shocking to know that the proposal is being considered instead of being rejected at the outset. Citing the comments of the Conservator of Forests (Mangaluru) on the issue, he stated that the ex-post facto clearance should not be considered. “The Supreme Court in the Lafarge Judgement clearly held that ex-post facto clearances are not permissible. There is no scope whatsoever to consider the proposal,” he stated.
The illegal raising of Lakya dam destroyed the wildlife habitat within Kudremukh National Park. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India in its report of 2003 pegged the environmental loss at ₹115.86 crore, he noted. Further, Mr. Bhargav urged the State government to declare the 1,401 hectares of government land at Kudremukh as part of Kudremukh National Park.
Mr. Bhargav has written to Additional Chief Secretary (Forests, Ecology and Environment) Anjum Parvez, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force Meenakshi Negi, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Chief Wildlife Warden P.C. Ray, and Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Forest Conservation) Mahesh B. Shirur.
The KIOCL, a Government of India enterprise established in 1976, set up a beneficiation plant to produce 7.5 million tonnes of iron ore a year at Kudremukh. It constructed a dam across Lakya for storage of tailings from its plant. The dam was constructed in two stages (1979 and 1994), and its height was increased to 100 metres. The tailings were stored in the dam until 2005, when the mining activities were stopped following the Supreme Court’s order in 2002. The company did not take forest clearance to build the dam. In the year 2022, it applied for forest clearance.