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Just days after the BJP accused the Telangana government of acting in haste by passing a resolution against uranium mining in Nallamala forest without a “progressive vision or full knowledge”, the party now seems to be on the back foot. Minister of state for Home, G Kishan Reddy has claimed that the BJP-led Centre did not grant permission for the mining in Nallamala. The minister said that the government has only given permission for uranium exploration and not for mining yet.
“Even the exploration is to be done without destroying trees, wildlife or polluting the groundwater,” the Union Minister said.
Earlier, BJP spokesperson K Krishna Saagar Rao through a statement said that the government’s resolution against any future mining in the state was a “hasty decision taken with neither a progressive vision nor with full knowledge of the need and consequences of uranium mining”.
Meanwhile, minister Kishan Reddy accused both the TRS and Congress of misleading the public. He said that it was the Congress government which had given the permission for the exploration, for which the TRS-led state government gave their consent in 2016.
“In Telangana, the discussion on Uranium mining did not happen during BJP rule, it happened in 2005 under Manmohan Singh government. Isn’t it true that the government took a few tribals from Nallamala to Jharkhand, to instill confidence in them that there would be no destruction due to uranium mining.?” Reddy noted.
The Minister said that it was the Congress which subsequently gave permission for uranium exploration in 2009. “Four times-- in 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2014 tree counting, digging up of borewells and testing of the core soil was done in Amrabad forest,” he said.
Slamming the Congress, he said, “The Congress party is displaying their opportunism, speaking one thing when in power and a different thing in Opposition.”
“In the country and in several other states, Congress has a history of not just giving permission for exploration of uranium but also for mining,” he alleged.
Earlier in May this year, the Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD) was given in-principle approval by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) which falls under the Ministry of Forest, Environment and Climate Change to conduct exploration for the radioactive mineral in Amrabad forest region in Nallamala, which is one of the largest tiger reserves in the country.
The AMD was supposed to drill 4,000 borewells to find the quantity of the radioactive mineral and determine its quality. However, the Chenchu community in Amrabad forest region adjoining the Nalgonda district, protested against both the exploration and mining. Subsequently, several activists, environmentalists and later celebrities joined the ‘Save Nallamala’ campaign against the mining. Faced with stiff protests, the state government said that they did not give permission for mining, but only granted permission for exploration. The Telangana Assembly passed a unanimous resolution against the mining.
