India has been one of the hot spots for iron ore extraction and for the past three years has been the largest producer of sponge iron in the world as there has been unprecedented growth of the sponge iron industry in India.
The Central Eastern belt of the country endowed with rich mineral resources including the states of Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal are the key regions for the growth of this industry. The other states that are leading in production of sponge iron are Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa Gujarat and Maharashtra. In fact, Gujarat has emerged as the largest producer of Sponge Iron this year.
Since the year 2000, spontaneous as well as organized movements have come up in the aforesaid regions against these Sponge Iron plants. These are areas which, apart from being mineral rich are also forest rich and inhabited mainly by tribals and forest dwelling communities dependent on the forest and agriculture for their survival.
On the other hand, sponge iron units have emerged as small scale industries requiring least investment. Thus, many illegal and unmonitored units have come up across the country. Air Pollution has been one of the most critical impacts of this industry, affecting health of the local population part from agricultural production and livestock, and wild as well as domestic biodiversity. The problem has worsened because these plants are medium and small scale units and don't have any technical system to minimize carbon dioxide and other green house gas emission.
(Sourced from www.steelguru.com
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Sponge iron industry threatening environment - Report
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