Join the Dots...Balco to Alutrint.... Moratorium on smelters in India and Trinidad now. People are being destroyed. Who is paying for this?

Three arrested in Vedanta plant deaths probe

By Amy Kazmin in New Delhi (reproduced here with respect and solidarity with victims)

Published: November 17 2009 14:42 | Last updated: November 17 2009 14:42

Indian police have arrested an executive and two other officials from the Indian subsidiary of Vedanta, the UK-listed mining company, for alleged negligence in connection with the collapse of a power plant chimney that killed 41 construction workers.

The chimney collapsed in a storm in late September, as Vedanta’s Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco) was building a aluminium smelter at its Korba complex.

The collapse unleashed a flurry of recriminatory finger-pointing, as Vedanta officials insisted that Balco, which is 51 per cent owned by its subsidiary Sterlite Industries India, and 49 per cent owned by the Indian government, was not responsible for the deaths.

Vedanta said the arrests of Balco’s vice-president overseeing the project, the associate general manager at the site, and a graduate engineer trainee for culpable homicide “comes as a surprise”, as the company was “co-operating fully” with the investigation.

Vedanta has said in the past that Balco was not responsible for the collapse.

The collapsed chimney was part of a 1,200 megawatt power plant being built for Balco by China’s Shandong Electric Power Construction Corp (Sepco), which employed at least 80 Chinese citizens at the project.

The chimney’s construction was outsourced to another Indian engineering group, Gannon Dunkerly.

Chinese executives and engineers from Sepco were also questioned immediately after the disaster, but none have been arrested or charged in connection with the deaths.

A Gannon Dunkerly project manager was arrested earlier on several charges, including the use of substandard materials.

Authorities in the state of Chhattisgarh are carrying out an independent judicial probe into the accident.

The disaster – one of the most serious industrial accidents in India in years – and this week’s arrests are the latest setback in India for Vedanta, which has come under fire for its plans to build a bauxite mine in the eastern state of Orissa in a mountain sacred to a small, animist tribe .

This week’s arrests come against the backdrop of growing controversy over the practices of India’s mining industry.

Orissa authorities last week shut down 64 iron, manganese and limestone mines, unconnected with Vedanta, for allegedly operating without any legal permits or licences.

Separately, Indian tax officials and investigators from other agencies are carrying out a probe into Madhu Koda, the former chief minister of the eastern state of Jharkhand.

He has been questioned by the authorities over bribes allegedly made in exchange for granting lucrative licences for mines and steel plants in the state.

Mr Koda has denied any wrongdoing.