Girijana Aikya Vedika for Telangana and AP has issued a strong message to the government that the later must suspend all moves to take up any kind of mining activity in the areas listed in the Fifth Schedule of the constitution, where the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) are the majority of the population.
“The tribal people will wage a war, if the government goes ahead with its plan of mining Bauxite in the Agency areas,” Vedika working president Vivek Vinayak said here on Sunday.
Mining activity of any kind would harm the eco-system of the hills and it had already started showing effect in the dwindling population of birds, he said. “The government which is supposed to appoint special officers for PTVGs is instead forsaking the interests of tribals and trying to include well-off communities into the ST list,” he pointed out.
He said the government was yet to constitute Tribal Advisory Council, a statutory body which is solely empowered to take decision on taking up any activity in the Fifth Schedule areas. “Any activity to be taken up in the Agency area has to be first cleared by gram sabhas . Based on its recommendation, the TAC has to pass a resolution which is then forwarded to the Governor who alone is empowered to decide on the matter, he explained. Though a resolution was passed by the TAC opposing bauxite mining in Visakhapatnam Agency, the government paid no heed to it.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who had opposed bauxite mining in the Agency area here when he was in the Opposition, has now changed his stance, E.A.S. Sarma, social activist and retired IAS Officer, said.
