The Lafarge Dilemma

The Indian landscape is testing territory for mining companies. While they are tempted by the immense richness of the soil, they are also put off by its uncountable hurdles — forests, native settlements and lack of infrastructure. It looked like things were getting better when French cement major Lafarge’s limestone mining project in Meghalaya started off in 2006 “almost smoothly,” given its complex nature.
A 17 km-long conveyor belt takes the limestone across the border to Lafarge’s cement plant in Bangladesh, part of the Indian government’s promise to develop its neighbour’s cement sector. But Meghalaya comes under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution due to which its land laws are vulnerable to various interpretations. 

Infographics: Hemal Seth

In 2007, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests asked the company to stop its operations on grounds that the mining was being done on forest land and not “non-forest land” as certified by the state administration. Though Lafarge got an interim relief from the Supreme Court, earlier this year it was forced to close the mines after a new directive. Lafarge’s fresh application for forest clearance is now being considered by the Apex Court. 

So how did a non-forest land suddenly become a forest when officers from the centre checked? While Lafarge officials declined to comment on the story, local activists smell a “conspiracy to alienate native Khasi tribals,” as alleged by B.M. Roy Dolloi, legal advisor of Shella Action Committee, or SAC, named after the village where part of the mining land is located and which has filed a PIL in Meghalaya High Court.

If the ban on mining is not lifted, Lafarge’s Bangladesh plant may close down “within weeks.” The SAC alleges that the transfer of land to Lafarge is illegal. “The land sale was done in secrecy. How was a tribal land given to a non-tribal entity? It is completely illegal,” says Dolloi. He adds that under the Meghalaya Land Transfer Act, even the state doesn’t have the right to transfer a tribal land to a non-tribal person or entity. He cites the Samata judgment in Andhra Pradesh where the state government had to return tribal areas that were transferred to mining companies.