Tamil Nadu: CM Stalin Urges PM to Halt Tungsten Mining in Madurai

Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin urged the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to immediately intervene and cancel the rights awarded to Hindustan Zinc Limited for mining tungsten in Madurai district in view of the growing protests against the project while the Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami said that it was the DMK government that had applied permission for the mineral mining in 2023.

Arittapatti that falls under the tungsten block in Melur district was a notified biodiversity heritage site, which was famous for archeological monuments like cave temples, sculptures, Jain symbols, Tamil Brahmi scripts ad pancha Pandavas stone beds, Stalin said in his letter to the Prime Minister on Friday.

‘In addition, commercial mining in such densely populated villages will definitely affect the people in these villages. This has caused immense anguish to the people, who fear that their livelihood may be lost forever. Hence, the Government of Tamil Nadu would never allow any such mining to be undertaken in these areas,’ the letter said.

However, Palaniswami, in a message on X, raised a question as to why the Chief Minister did not mention that it was his government’s Natural Resources Department that had sought permission for the tungsten mining in 2023 and described Stalin’s letter as a drama.

The letter, in which Stalin refers to the situation in Madurai as grim, urged the Prime Minister to instruct the Ministry of Mines to cancel the award of tungsten mining rights given to Hindustan Zinc Limited and requested him to instruct the Ministry of Mines to desist from floating any bids for mining without the consent of the State Government.

Earlier, on November 21, the State government, through a press release, informed that no permission had been granted for carrying out any mineral exploration in the Nayakkaratti tungsten block after local people started a protest against the project for mining in 2015.5 hectares of land in the villages of Kulanipatti and Melur though the Union Government, after floating tenders on June 24, had awarded the lease to Hindustan Zinc Limited.

Since there was every indication that the project would be implemented the local people from about 10 villages went on protest, which was called off on Friday after State Minister P Moorthy, representing Madurai East constituency in the Assembly, held talks with them. However, Palaniswami, in a message on X, said that the AIADMK would support the protest.

Stalin, in his letter to the Prime Minister, said: ‘We had already raised our concerns on such auctioning of mining rights of critical and strategic minerals, through the letter dated 03.10.2023, from our Honb’le Minister for Water Resources and Natural Resources. But unfortunately, the Hon'ble Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines in his letter dated 02.11.2023 had rejected them, mentioning that the auction of critical minerals by Ministry of Mines cannot be withheld, in the larger interests of the country.’

Later, on November 7, the Union Ministry of Mines declared Hindustan Zinc Limited as the preferred bidder of Nayakkan Patti Tungsten block (Critical and Strategic Mineral) under Tranche IV, which comprised of Kavattayampatty, Ettimangalam, A.Vellalapatti, Arittapatti, Kidaripatti and Narasingampatti villages, he said.

Urging the Prime Minister to cancel the mining rights to Hindustan Zinc, which is a subsidiary of the Vedanta Group that owns Sterlite Industries, Stalin requested him to instruct the Ministry of Mines to desist from floating any bids for mining without the consent of the concerned State Government.

Since the Hindustan Zinc would have to obtain a slew of permissions, licenses, permits, approvals and consents from both the State and Union governments, State Forests Minister K Ponmudi had earlier said that if the company approached the government, the departments concerned would be advised to decline them.