(a)whether the Government has noticed the environment related problems existing in the mining areas of "Indian Rare Earth Limited";
(b)if so, the details thereof;
(c)whether the Government has set up any agency to redress such problems existing in the above areas; and
(d)if so, the action taken by the Government in this regard?
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR PERSONNEL, PUBLIC GRIEVANCES & PENSIONS AND PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE (Dr. JITENDRA SINGH):
(a)There are no environment related problems reported in the mining areas of Indian Rare Earth Limited (IREL), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), located at Orissa Sands Complex (OSCOM), Odisha; Manavalakurichi, Tamil Nadu; and Chavara, Kerala.
(b)Does not arise in view of (a) above
(c) & (d) Health Physics Unit (HPU), an independent unit of Environmental Assessment Division (EAD) of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Government of India is existing in all the operating units of IREL to monitor all the air discharges, waste water / treated effluent, solid wastes etc. as well as the radiological safety aspects in and around IREL as per Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) guidelines / requirements.
HPU independently collects, analyses the environmental data and sends quarterly reports to AERB. Moreover, IREL’s Plants are inspected/ monitored from time to time by AERB to evaluate the radiation safety aspects as required under the rules/acts. Further, radiological surveillance is also carried out by personnel of AERB during their scheduled regulatory inspection. The monitoring reports on radioactivity levels of air, water and soil samples as maintained by HPU indicate that all the values are well within the permissible limits.
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