Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to instruct the Ministry of Mines to cancel the award of tungsten mining rights given to Hindustan Zinc Ltd in Madurai District.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Stalin said, “I wish to draw your attention to grim situation in Madurai district due to the Union Government’s award of tungsten mining rights and request your immediate intervention to cancel it.”
The state government had already raised concerns about auctioning the mining rights of critical and strategic minerals through the letter dated October 3, 2023, from the State Minister for Water Resources and Natural Resources. Unfortunately, the Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines rejected them in his letter dated November 2, 2023, mentioning that the auction of critical minerals by the Ministry of Mines cannot be withheld in the larger interests of the country.
The Union Ministry of Mines declared Hindustan Zinc as the preferred bidder of the Nayakkarpatti Tungsten block (Critical and Strategic Mineral) under Tranche IV on November 7, 2024. The above Tungsten Block comprises Kavattayampatty, Ettimangalam, A.Vallalapatty, Arittapatty, Kidaripatty and Narasingampatty villages.
Among them, Arittapatti is a notified Bio-Diversity Heritage site famous for its archaeological monuments, including cave temples, sculptures, Jain symbols, Tamil Brahmi Scripts and Pancha Pandavar stone beds. Any mining activity will cause irreparable damage to these sites.
In addition, commercial mining in densely populated villages will affect the people there. This has caused immense anguish to the people, who fear their livelihood may be lost forever. Hence, Stalin said in the letter that the Government of Tamil Nadu would never allow mining in these areas.
In the letter, Stalin also requested the Prime Minister to instruct the Ministry of Mines to desist from floating any bids for mining without the consent of the concerned State Government.