New Delhi: Even though a plea challenging prior approval to divert forest land for a road linked to Vedanta Limited’s proposed Sijimali bauxite mine in Odisha remains pending before the National Green Tribunal, the Narendra Modi government has granted it final clearance. The 2.98-km greenfield road in Rayagada district’s Kashipur tehsil, intended for transportation of bauxite from Sijimali to Vedanta’s Lanjigarh alumina refinery, will involve diverting 4.911 hectares of forest land. The road and mining projects, which involve separate proposals for forest land diversion, have drawn strong opposition from local tribal communities over alleged violations of forest rights, disputed Gram Sabha resolutions and potential threats to their environment and religious beliefs.The road’s construction was in the eye of a storm in April 2026 when local communities faced off with police during an alleged pre-dawn raid to arrest protestors opposed to the project. Four persons belonging to different villages of Kashipur tehsil had filed a plea in the green tribunal in February 2026 demanding quashing of the prior approval, in other words, the Stage I forest clearance, of the road. They alleged that they will be shortchanged of their rights and their symbiotic existence with nature if the forests are cleared. The National Green Tribunal had fixed a hearing of the case on May 7, 2026 at its Eastern bench in Kolkata. However, through a letter dated May 5, 2026, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEF&CC) issued final forest clearance to the Odisha government which is constructing the road. The case has now been posted for hearing on May 20, 2026.A plea challenging the final clearance was also filed in NGT on May 11.What is the road project?The road will connect the proposed 9 million tons per annum (MTPA) Sijimali mine with state highway numbered SH-44 for transporting bauxite for Vedanta’s Lanjigarh smelter. Total land required for the road is 11.314 hectares including 6.403 hectares of non-forest land and 0.160 hectares of private land, apart from the forest land.The Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO), a statutory agency of the state government entrusted with developing infrastructure and acquiring land for industrial projects, had submitted a proposal to the MoEF&CC in 2025 to divert forest land for the road project.In a meeting held on July 30, 2025, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) – an expert body which assesses potential impacts of clearing forests for mining and industrial projects on behalf of the ministry – decided to consider this proposal after taking the final decision on the separate proposal of forest clearance for the mining project. A proposal had been submitted earlier in 2024 by Vedanta to clear 708.204 hectares of forest land for the bauxite mine.Subsequently, the FAC recommended Stage I forest clearance for the bauxite mine on December 2, 2024. The ministry’s website does not contain the minutes of a meeting, if any, which would have been convened to consider granting Stage I clearance for the road project. However, the ministry issued a letter dated January 5, 2026, conveying to the Odisha government that the road project has been granted Stage I clearance.A Right to Information query was filed by this correspondent seeking details of FAC’s deliberations on the road project. The ministry responded only by outlining the steps for accessing minutes of FAC’s meetings from its website. An appeal was filed with a higher authority, subsequently. The ministry issued a similar response to this appeal through an email dated May 14, 2026, to this correspondent. Meanwhile, in the final clearance letter, the ministry has directed the Odisha government to ensure payment of costs from the “user agency” towards net present value (NPV) of the trees to be felled and for undertaking compensatory afforestation over 6.07 hectares of non-forest land. A questionnaire has been emailed to Vedanta Limited asking, amongst other queries, about the amount that it will have to pay in terms of costs for NPV and afforestation. This article will be updated if we receive any response.The final clearance letter of the Union ministry, which has been included as an annexure to Vedanta’s response to the NGT on May 7.What have local communities alleged in the plea in NGT?Local communities have alleged that their rights, as has been guaranteed under the FRA Act, 2006, that is, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, have been violated by granting permission to clear forest land for the road.Documents on the ministry’s website show that the forest land is categorised as DLC Forest, that is, an area identified by a district-level committee as a forest. It has a vegetation density of less than 0.4, which indicates sparse or low-density vegetation and the state forest department has recorded a total number of 91 trees over the area. Local communities have contested this claim. “The number of trees enumerated by the government on this patch of forest land is grossly under-reported. Local communities are dependent on this forest land for minor produce like timber and fruits,” said Suba Singh Majhi, leader of Maa Mati Mali Surakhya Mancha (‘Mother, Soil and Farmer Protection Forum’), a local forum opposed to mining in these hills and forests.The forest consists of trees like Sal, Bahada, Jamun, mango and gooseberries as per the documents which also mark the presence of animals including barking deer, wild boar, peacock and Indian hare in the project site. A research paper published in February 2024 by Sanctuary Nature Foundation, a non-profit working for the conservation of wildlife and biodiversity, had not only listed the presence of elephants in the locality of the identified mining area but also the presence of a species of the Asian small-clawed otter, a semi-aquatic mammal listed as Vulnerable under the IUCN Red List and categorised under Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972. It had also noted the presence of numerous hill streams in the area. These facts, however, do not find mention in the ministry’s documents regarding the biodiversity of the forests.“The dry deciduous Sijimali forest has several riparian forests along its streams. Scats and spoor of small-clawed otters, one of only three otter species in India, mark the banks of almost all perennial hill streams of southern Odisha. Kalahandi and Rayagada are elephant habitats, with elephant presence observed in the locality of the identified mining area,” stated the research paper.Several tribal families who have been, for generations, dependent on minor produce from these forests stand to lose their supplementary income following its diversion.Notably, Rayagada district is classified as Schedule V, in accordance with provisions of the constitution for its preponderance of tribal population. Special provisions of law, including consultations with Gram Sabhas under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and the PESA Act, 1996, are applicable prior to takeover of land for industrial, infrastructure and mining projects in the district.IDCO’s roleFollowing a meeting of top officials in January 2024, during the tenure of former Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), IDCO was entrusted to facilitate land acquisition for the road and thereafter transfer the acquired land to the state’s public works department (PWD). It was also decided that the PWD, while retaining ownership of the land, will provide a no-objection certificate (NoC) to Vedanta Limited for constructing the road.The role of IDCO, whose mandate is to develop infrastructure for industries, in undertaking the road project as an ancillary part of the mine has also been challenged in the NGT plea. It has been argued that the road is not a standalone or ancillary project but an integral part of the Sijimali bauxite mine.“The 1st respondent [the ministry] has failed to see that by considering the 3rd respondent’s [IDCO’s] proposal for diversion of the subject forest lands as a standalone linear project, mandatory requirement of consent of tribals under the FRA Act 2006 have been circumvented and defeated,” argues the petition filed by locals in the NGT.The petition further states that the Act under which IDCO was formed mandates it only to “establish and manage industrial estates and develop industrial areas at places notified by the government” and that the Act does not contain provisions for IDCO to obtain “clearance for diversion of forest lands for entities like the 4th respondent”, that is, for mining activities.The IDCO, through a written response to this correspondent, has said that it is acquiring the land for the road under Odisha government’s “Land Bank” scheme for “establishment of industries i.e. construction of approach road from Sijimali bauxite mines top to SH-44 for facilitating bauxite transportation by Vedanta Limited.” The private land component, amounting to 0.160 hectares, is being acquired using the LARR Act, 2013, it has also said.A file image of the protests at Sijimali. Photo: By arrangement.Why are local communities opposed to the Sijimali bauxite mine?Apart from the road project, local communities are also opposed to the Sijimali mine which contains approximately 311 million tonnes of bauxite. The proposed opencast mine’s lease is spread over an area of 1,549.022 hectares straddling the southern Odisha districts of Rayagada and Kalahandi. As many as 18 villages, in the Thuamul Rampur tehsil of Kalahandi and the Kashipur tehsil of Rayagada, will be affected by the project. These tehsils are also classified as Schedule V areas. The forests which will be cleared for the mining project have also been used by local communities for minor produce.Local communities claim traditional “religious and cultural rights” over the forestland. They also oppose its diversion as it would hamper the worship of “Tiriraja”, their presiding deity of the forestland. A writ petition filed in Odisha High Court states that the “deity of the villagers is Tijiraja, whose abode is Tijimali @ Sijimali, which is under the proposed mining lease area, and the villagers of these villages worship Tijiraja.” This petition was filed alleging forgery in signatures of attendees in Gram Sabha meetings that were held across ten villages in December 2023. Further, the plea filed in the green tribunal states that the Sijimali hill consists of the sacred groves of the Kandha, the Dombo and the Gouda – tribal communities living in villages in and around the area sought to be mined.“It is the abode of their god “Tijraja” … Their water resources, farmlands, forest produce, and sacred groves are all inextricably connected to the Tijmali [sic] hills,” the plea says.In separate public hearings held in October 2023 in Rayagada and Kalahandi for obtaining prior environmental clearance for the Sijimali project, local communities had voiced opposition against the mining project.In the writ petition alleging forgery in signatures of attendees in Gram Sabha meetings held across 10 villages in December 2023, the Odisha high court had directed the Union government in March 2025 to ensure that pending forest rights claims of tribal communities on Sijimali forests are fully settled before allowing diversion of forestland for the mining project. The district administrations of Rayagada and Kalahandi, thereafter however, furnished certificates, purportedly issued by the Gram Sabhas on January 24, 2024 and January 18, 2024, respectively, confirming that the proposal for diversion of forest land for the mining project has their free and informed consent.Alleging that the state government was trying to mislead the FAC on the issue of settlement of rights of forest-dependent communities, local communities sent at least three communications to the ministry. These communications were sent by the Gram Sabha representatives to the ministry via email and have been seen by this correspondent.“The communications contained resolutions of ten Gram Sabhas affected by the mining project. The Gram Sabhas conducted by the state government were entirely fraudulent in nature. The attendance register of the fake Gram Sabhas contains names of dead people, minor children and even people who do not exist at all,” said Gobinda Majhi, the lead petitioner in the high court, adding, “We have not given our consent for the mining project.”It has now been alleged that the ministry recommended the forest clearance without taking cognizance of their complaints. Odisha government enquiry into Gram SabhasIn February 2025, following the admission of the writ petition in the high court, the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) had written to the Odisha government seeking its responses to allegations of fabricated Gram Sabhas. An enquiry was conducted through Rayagada’s Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), a district-level agency that helps ensure delivery of public goods and services to tribal communities. Local people told ITDA during its enquiry that while some of the purported Gram Sabha meetings were never conducted, others were carried out forcefully by inviting outsiders as attendees.The ITDA report dated August 12, 2025 – a copy of which is with this correspondent – states as follows:“ … villagers of Aliguna, Bundel and Kantamal, they have claimed that Gram Sabha was conducted forcefully in their absence. They narrated that some people from outside of their locality had attended the same Gram Sabha in disguised [sic] and they signed/given their thumb impression against their name as per the voter list. They were unaware about the decision taken in the Gram Sabha. They opined that it was illegal as the Gram Sabha conducted in their absence and the decision taken in the Gram Sabha was against their will and against the interest of livelihood.”For Vedanta, the road and projects are important as it will be used to transport bauxite from Sijimali, once the mine is operational, to its Lanjigarh alumina smelter which has been granted environmental clearance to function at a capacity of 6 MTPA. In the past, Gram Sabhas of several project-affected tribal villages had rejected a proposal to extract bauxite from Niyamgiri Hills, spread across Kalahandi and Rayagada, to feed Vedanta’s Lanjigarh smelter on the grounds that it would violate their “religious and cultural rights”. These Gram Sabha meetings were organised following a landmark Supreme Court order in 2013.