Buxwaha forest in the Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh has been under the scrutinizing eyes of environmentalists, activists and othersover the years. Lately, another controversy has come up THE DIAMOND MINING PROJECT- led by Aditya Birla Group’s Essel Mining and Industries Ltd. (EMIL).
The project stretches across an area of 364 hectares in the Buxwaha forest that makes up to225 kilometers north-east of Bhopal. EMIL group states that this project will boost the economy of the country and provide employment because of its fully mechanized open caste mind and state-of-the-art processing plant to recover diamonds and the total amount estimated for this project is 2500 crores which will lead to future gains of 55000 crores to the economy. This super project has the potential to become one of the largest diamond mines in the whole Asian continent. But all of this is at the cost of nature which is irreplaceable and the damage is non-recoverable, on an average around 200000 trees are to be cut for the mining to take place.
Many PILs have been filed in the Supreme Court in opposition to this project and a lot of social media campaigns and protests are going on for the same cause. Here are some facts that one needs to know about the Buxwaha forest and its diamond scam:
- In India, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh are the largest diamond-producing states. Amongst them, MP (Buxwaha) accounts for 90% of the total diamonds in the country.
- The livelihood of over 7000 tribles is dependent on the Buxwaha forest and the total population of this area is reported as 10216 which will greatly suffer due to mining activities.
- Buxwaha region is draught prone and extensive diamond mining is a water-intensive project which will lead to scarcity of water and lower the groundwater levels.
- Rio Tinto- an Anglo Australian company discovered diamond deposits in this region and they named it as Bunder Project since this area is centric to monkey population.
- The state government of Madhya Pradesh will get 42% mining royalty on the sales of diamonds and the rest of the profit will be with Aditya Birla Group.
- It is estimated that 27.4 million carats of diamonds are to be found in this area.
- The Forest Advisory Committee has condemned the area between Panna Tiger Reserve Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary in the proposed inviolate category as per the draft criteria of MOEFCC.
- For mining, the processing water requirement is about 5.9 million cubic meters per year.
- Panna Tiger Reserve is known as the largest diamond store.
- Some of the rarest species of animals like- Indian Gazelles, Chowsingha, Sloth Bears, Leopard, Tiger, Monitor Lizards, Indian Rumped vultures and Peacock and home to diverse flora and fauna such as Ghoat, Behda, Saugon, Amaltas, Khair, Seja, Teak, Jamun Tendu, Renjha, are native to the forest.
Written By – Jeet Sandhu