A campaign to save lots of Madhya Pradesh’s Buxwaha forest has been gaining momentum, as a diamond mining project concerned by Aditya Birla group’s Essel Mining & Industries Limited (EMIL) risks felling of over 2 lakh trees moreover as increasing air and pollution.
The proposed project concerns a section of 384 hectare in Buxwaha Protected Forest and located near Village Sagoria.The project is about 80 Kms from Chhatarpur, the district headquarters and 260 Km from Bhopal the urban center. The estimated resources within the block are around 53.70 million tonnes of kimberlite ore containing about 34 million carats of rough diamonds.
According to reports, EMIL plans to develop a totally mechanized opencast mine and processing plant for diamond. The project is estimated with an investment of INR 2500 Cr. EMIL is currently within the process of obtaining various regulatory clearances like approval of Mine Plan, Environment & Forest clearances required for the execution of mining lease. the corporate targets the execution of the Mining Lease by end of the year 2022 and thereafter initiates the mining activities.
The block consists of 7000 villagers and over 17 tribes which are forest dwellers and directly depends on the forest products like mahua ,tendu leaves, chironji and Amla for livelihood . The project when executed will clear the land by cutting over 2 lakh trees and can require an estimated 5.9 million kiloliters per day of water which will be fulfilled by making a dam diverting a seasonal nallah (canal) which might store upto 17 million cubic meter.
According to Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), the highest three diamond reserves states of India are state, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh . Among which Madhya Pradesh alone accounts to possess 90.18 percent. The mine is estimated to possess the potential of the most important reservoir of diamonds in Asia . Earlier the project was given to the planet largest diamond miner’s of Australia , Rio Tinto but they existed the project later gifting the project to the regime , the official never supplied with a selected reason but was mainly because of light of bad press.