Chennai, May 1(BPNS)

The Tamil Nadu government has constituted a seven member panel to monitor the Vedanta Oxygen plant at Tuticorin as per the orders of the Supreme Court of India to supervise the entire production of Oxygen at the Vedanta’s Sterlite plant premises.

The seven member team constituted by the Government comprises of the Tuticorin district collector who heads the team along with the Tuticorin district superintendent of Police, sub collector, district environmental engineer of pollution control board, deputy chief chemist of Tuticorin thermal power station and two environmental experts to be nominated as per the Supreme court orders.

Vedanta CEO ,Pankaj Kumar had earlier written letters to Union health minister Harsh Vardhan and the Tamil Nadu Chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami stating that the company’s two Oxygen plants together have the capacity to produce 1000 tons of Oxygen daily.

The Company had also written to the Supreme Court of India which had allowed Oxygen from its plants in Tuticorin which was shut down by an order of the Tamil Nadu government following mass agitations against the Sterilite plant.

It may be noted that Sterilite plant was closed down in Tamil Nadu in March 2018 following months of agitations by the local people and activists. The company’s plea to access the plant for maintenance was not entertained by the court.