London-based resource giant Vedanta has decided to take on its critics who have been attacking from all sides over its plans to mine an area in India held sacred by a tribal group.
In a move that caught the public's imagination last month, a lobby group working for indigenous people ran a campaign comparing the plight of the Indian tribe, the Dongria Kondh, to the characters in the hit film "Avatar".
In the futuristic James Cameron blockbuster, the Na'vi tribe are desperately trying to stop humans from mining under their sacred "home tree" on their planet Pandora.
Faced with this public relations disaster, a damaging snub from the Church of England and scathing criticism from other investors, Vendanta has opted to fight back by arguing its case in interviews and an advertising campaign.
Speaking to AFP, a senior executive from Vedanta denied the company would be mining anywhere near the sacred tribal site in the eastern Indian state of Orissa and said it would bring employment and development to the region.
"The site the Dongria Kondh tribe hold sacred is 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the planned mining area," Vedanta Aluminium Ltd chief operating officer Mukesh Kumar told AFP.
Vedanta Aluminium is a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources Plc, which is controlled by billionaire Anil Agarwal.
In a full-page advertisement prominently placed on Thursday in the Times of India, the country's biggest-circulation English language daily, Vedanta vaunted its work in Orissa where unemployment is more than 50 percent.
"Employment and livelihood opportunities to over 20,000 common people," says one line.
Vedanta's 125-billion-
The open-caste mine in the Niyamgiri Hill range in Orissa is intended to feed a nearby aluminium refinery which has already been built by the company and is supplied with bauxite from other Indian states.
Kumar, citing an Orissa state government tribal study, said only the Hundijali Hill in the range was considered sacred by the 8,000-strong Dongria Kondh tribe.
But opponents of the project say the tribe believes all of the hills are the home of their god, Niyam Raja, and the mine will destroy the ecosystem of the hills and threaten its future.
"It's clear they consider all of it sacred," Jo Woodman from London-based indigenous people lobby group Survival International, which organised the "Avatar" campaign last month, told AFP by telephone.
Kumar said the open-caste mine, which has been mired in dispute since 2005, would cause minimum disturbance to the remote hills and that mined areas would be planted over with trees once the bauxite was extracted.
The total area of the Niyamgiri Hills is 250 square kilometres (100 square miles) and the mining will take place on 3.8 square kilometres or 1.5 percent of the total area, he said.
In addition, Kumar said the refinery and mine would help alleviate poverty in the deeply deprived region with the company committed to providing jobs, health care, education and midday feeding schemes to locals.
"These people have a right to a good life, to go to school, to get proper health care," he said, adding Vedanta had complied with all Indian regulations.
Woodman said the tribespeople "have an absolute right to development, but it shouldn't be delivered by a company, it should be delivered by the government. They shouldn't have to give up their hills in exchange."
The FTSE-100-listed company has come under fierce criticism in India and internationally over its plans with opponents saying it failed to get the "informed" consent of tribespeople in the area.
Vedanta, which has Supreme Court approval for the mining, is still awaiting final clearance from the Indian government before starting operations.
The Church of England announced last month it had sold its six-million-
The church's action was soon followed by the Quaker-run Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust which sold its 3.3 million dollars worth of shares in Vedanta, calling its activities in India "morally indefensible."
