The Hindu : Government firm on uranium plant

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 02, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Government firm on uranium plant

By S. Ramu

NALGONDA, FEB.1. Notwithstanding the Pollution Control Board's reported firm `no' to the Uranium Corporation of India Limited's proposal to set up uranium mining unit and processing plant at Lambapur-Peddagattu and Mallapuram villages respectively in the district, the State Government seems determined to go ahead with it.

Not cowed down by the Technical Committee's observations and the People's War's threats, the Government wants to give the green signal to the mining operations.

Speaking to The Hindu, the Minister for Mines and Geology, Uma Madhava Reddy, who represented the Bhongir constituency in the district in the dissolved Assembly, sought to clarify that the PCB had not rejected the UCIL's proposal in toto. "I am told that they don't have any problem with the mining but they seem to have some objections with regard to the processing unit as it is in the vicinity and catchment of the Nagarjunasagar reservoir,'' she clarified.

UCIL officials had already launched a search to shift the processing unit to a "safer'' site much before the PCB came out with its observations last week. A team of officials inspected revenue land at Seripally in Devarkonda mandal for the purpose, it is learnt.

"We are going to change the processing plant site in tune with the Technical Committee's opinion that it should be established away from Nagarjunasagar,'' the Minister said adding that the Government would take a decision on the issue in a couple of months.

The Government is also seriously giving a thought to the security aspects involved in the project in the wake of the rampage by the PW naxals in Peddagattu village in December 3, 2003.

It may be recalled that a group of armed naxals torched two rigs, two generators and three vehicles involved in the extraction of uranium samples after picking an argument with scientists working at the site.

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