By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: History says Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Group Built Factory First and Offered Community Projects Later, Promise for a Medical College in Odisha looks like a Biggest Corporate Jokes.
Vedanta has again asked the Odisha government to open bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills. The hills hold about 80 million tonnes of bauxite. In 2013, twelve gram sabhas rejected the project after the Supreme Court asked them to decide.
The Dongria Kondh still say the mountain is sacred and that mining will harm their forests and streams of livelihoods. Along with this demand, the company has announced new projects a 3 million tonne aluminium smelter in Dhenkanal, a 6 million tonne alumina refinery in Rayagada, expansion of the Jharsuguda plant, and a 1,000 bed hospital in western Odisha.
Let’s compare this with Norsk Hydro, a major aluminium company in Norway.In towns such as Sunndal, Årdal and Høyanger, the plants and the towns grew together. Even UNESCO World Heritage site are world class in their plant side.
Workers earned good wages. The company paid high taxes. Local shops and suppliers got business. Heat from the smelter was used in public buildings. The towns built proper schools and hospitals because the money from industry stayed in the area. Now we should compare them with Vedanta of Odisha in our naked eyes
Vedanta has operated in Lanjigarh and Jharsuguda for almost twenty years. It has a 20 bed hospital from 2010, mobile health vans, Nand Ghars and some diagnostic centres.These services help some people but they have not changed the region in a lasting way.
Large parts of Kalahandi and Rayagada remain poor. Villagers still complain of dust, red mud and fly ash.In 2017, an ash pond near Jharsuguda burst and waste entered the Bheden river.
The state pollution board later fined Vedanta ₹71 crore for illegal fly ash dumping. That case is still in court.Hydro had to work under strict rules and pay into a system that built public facilities for everyone. Mean time Vedanta built the factory first and offered community projects later.
The new hospital is still only a promise. The people of Niyamgiri already gave their answer thirteen years ago.A company that wants to grow Odisha has to first protect the health, water, schools and rights of the people who live on that land.
Odisha government and administrative officials check and case study how European counterparts similar of Vedanta functioning in European cities, I am not saying we should copy them fully but we should at least take the inspiration how they are changing the livelihoods.
Vedanta taken enough from Odisha it’s time for them to give Odisha at first now and later dig more mines. Promise via a statement doesn’t work in today’s fast paced world, build with speed and implement in ground level that should be Odisha’s priority.
In short, the signalling already rekindled sharp opposition and associates the state government with a highly symbolic, contested project. It strengthens a “development vs. rights” framing that historically favored the tribals’ image of successful resistance, while the government gains some credit for investment attraction among growth-oriented constituencies. Balanced handling (transparent process, genuine consent, local benefits) would be needed to mitigate reputational costs.
For a government led by a tribal CM (Majhi, from a mining-affected background), this can appear inconsistent with earlier stances on protecting locals from exploitation and could erode trust in scheduled areas. National and international coverage of tribal resistance (as in the original Niyamgiri case) can amplify perceptions of the state as development-obsessed at the expense of indigenous rights and ecology
