Three months after its regional office cited a violation of rules, the environment ministry has stopped the construction of a cement plant by the Jaiprakash group in Uttar Pradesh (UP) citing violations of the Forest Conservation Act and the Supreme Court orders. The plant is close to the Son river and Kaimur Wildlife Sanctuary in the Mirzapur and Sonbhadra districts of UP and covers an area of about 500km2 as the core area of the sanctuary, with an additional 146.85km2 area as reserve forest. Kaimur is believed to one of the last places to have supported the now extinct Asiatic cheetah.

It is a second such violation this year with the ministry revoking environment clearance of Nirma’s cement plant in Gujarat citing green norm violation.

Jaiprakash Associates was constructing a 2.5Mta cement plant in the Sonebhadra district of UP located just 2.1km from the Sanctuary.
Advertisement