Lingaraj Azad, SJP president and advisor with the NSS, is one of them. “On 25 March,” Krushna said, “Azad was arrested and eight charges were levied against him. When he got bail on all charges, the police levied yet another charge. He is still in jail.”
As is Hiramal Naik, a member of the Maa Mati Mali Suraksha Mancha, another grassroots organisation opposed to Vedanta’s Sijimali bauxite mining project. “Naik has been in jail since his arrest on 28 August,” said Krushna.
When Akhilesh Singh, DIG (south Odisha), was asked by local journalists why the jail terms of activists were being extended indefinitely, he replied that he would not allow the likes of Azad to be released.
There’s another reason for Agarwal’s hurry to push through the mining project. On 1 October, the Cuttack High Court dismissed a petition filed by Vedanta against Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC).
Vedanta had sought the supply of 150 million tonnes of bauxite at older, cost-linked rates under a 2004 agreement for its aluminium refinery in Lanjigarh, Kalahandi district. However, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Murahari Sri Raman ruled that the company could neither revive nor enforce agreements terminated in September 2015, after amendments to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act. The court held that Vedanta had failed to challenge the terminations in time, thereby rendering them final.
This has forced Vedanta to purchase market-rate bauxite, costing Vedanta Aluminium an additional Rs 5,600 crore.
Activists believe that the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act 2026 was rushed through in Parliament to benefit corporates like Vedanta, who could now write off lakhs of crores of rupees owed to mineral-rich states. (States have been allocating revenues generated from mining for public welfare programmes like healthcare, education, social security, agriculture, sanitation and drinking water.)
About the Author
