No bauxite mining in Agency : We honour sentiments of tribals, says Chief Minister

Visakhapatnam: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday announced that his government will never allow bauxite mining in the Agency area in the district.

He assured the tribals inhabiting the Agency area that his government will never take any anti-tribal decisions. "We honour the sentiments of the tribals," Naidu said.

The Chief Minister's categorical stand on bauxite mining came after the public sector behemoth NALCO had said that it was ready to set up alumina refinery complex if the state government supplied alumna-ore bauxite.

Describing NALCO's assertion as one intended to set a cat among pigeons, Naidu said that it was a ploy to ruffle the sentiments of the tribals.

The game plan is clear - the Centre wants to drive a wedge between the state and tribals. "It is creating problem in the state by raking up the issue," he said.

Interacting with tribals at ‘Grama Darsini’ (Village Visit), at Adarimetta village in Paderu mandal in the Agency area, Naidu said that the bauxite issue was the making of the erstwhile Congress government in the state.

It had signed MoUs with private companies to mine bauxite, ignoring how this action would affect the tribals and damage environment.

After the Congress’ ill-advised decision on bauxite mining, the TDP government was now fighting with the private companies in courts outside India.

But, it never goes back in conserving the environment and the wealth of the tribals in the scheduled areas. "No bauxite mining will be allowed in any part of the scheduled area in the district,” Chandrababu Naidu declared.

During his address, the Chief Minister also said that whatever the decisions the erstwhile government had taken hurting the interests of the tribals, he would take steps to undo them.

The Chief Minister assured the tribals that the state government will provide all the facilities in the agency on par with the developed towns.

The tribal communities also should compete with the plain areas which the state government would provide all sort of infrastructure and facilities to the last hamlet.

The government would shortly bring cyber connectivity to each tribal hamlet, the Chief Minister said.

Referring to the potential for growing organic vegetables and other forest products from the Agency area, Naidu said that there is a huge demand for the products and the government was planning to develop exclusive marketing support system to help the tribals benefit from the demand.