ASupreme Court-appointed committee has objected to Vedanta Aluminium's plan to carry out bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri and Karlapat region of Orissa, saying that such a move will adversely affect the region's environment.

Vedanta Aluminium, a unit of the London-listed Vedanta Resources, plans to build a one-million-tonne alumina refinery in Lanjigarh for about Rs 4,000 crore. The project includes extracting bauxite from the Niyamgiri and Karlapat mines, to be later refined into alumina at the refinery.

The committee, which submitted its recommendation yesterday, said bauxite mining should not be allowed as it would destroy the ecological balance in the area and also endanger lives of animals. But Vedanta said it is confident of starting the project on schedule as the Orissa government, one of the respondents in the litigation, had earlier publicly disagreed with the view that mining would affect the environment.

"This (the view of the impact on the environment) has already been opposed by the state government, and chief minister Naveen Patnaik has said the project poses no such threat," said a Vedanta executive.

Vedanta had earlier said the alumina refinery is scheduled by early 2007. It has already started building the refinery and is currently awaiting government approval for mining.
"We are pleased that the committee has submitted its recommendation as it would now allow the approval process to move forward," said a Vedanta spokesperson.
The government's approval for mining had been delayed after a public interest litigation was filed last year in the Supreme Court.