Vedanta company suspends mining

By Thirumalai Manivannan
Editor, BBC Tamil service

An Indian subsidiary of the UK mining company Vedanta says it is suspending bauxite mining in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

The Madras Aluminium Company (Malco) mines bauxite in the Kolli hills some 400km (250 miles) from Madras (Chennai), the capital of Tamil Nadu.

Local environmentalists have filed a court case saying that Malco's mining lease has expired.

They say the mining is damaging the area's important biodiversity.

'No clearances'

The pressure group, Speak Out Salem, is seeking a ban on mining in the area.

"The company's lease to mine bauxite ran out in 1998 and it had applied for renewal of the lease," lawyer Nagasaila Suresh, who is representing Speak Out Salem, told the BBC Tamil service.

"The government gave the permission subject to the company obtaining other environmental clearances under four laws but the company did not get the clearances.

"It continued its mining activity without those clearances," Ms Suresh said.

She said the Kolli hills were an important ecosystem, with rare flora and fauna that had been badly damaged by the mining.

Malco told the BBC that it had "voluntarily decided to temporarily suspend" its mining operations in the Kolli hills area until formal clearance from the government had been received.

A company spokesman said in an e-mail that it had already applied for environmental clearance for mining operations at Kolli.