Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) investigations shed light on the efforts by the Indian mining and gas giant Vedanta to lobby the government for an increased 50 percent production of coal without having to apply for new permits.

Anil Agarwal, chairman of the group wrote in a letter dated January 2021 to the then environment minister, Prakash Javadekar that this will create jobs and boost the pandemic-hit economy recommending authorising the request through issuing a simple notice will be sufficient – without further procedures. In early 2022, the request was granted after a series of closed-door meetings, without much deliberation.

The investigative report cited above also discusses the firm’s earlier effort to scrap public hearings over new oil and gas exploration blocks. In June 2021, a letter from Sunil Duggal, Group CEO of Vedanta directed to PM Modi argued that by loosening environmental safeguards production can be increased across the board including in mining and oil and gas sectors.

In April 2022, the environmental ministry released a memorandum eliminating the necessity for miners to conduct public discussions when increasing production by a maximum of 40%, with a new stipulation of accepting only written input up to 50%. Analysts noted that this change would marginalize a significant portion of the Indian population that lacks literacy skills or faces challenges in navigating governmental procedures.

The scene for the above played out in the state of Rajasthan when in July 2019 the director general of hydrocarbons V.J Joy from the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas proposed exempting the new onshore oil and gas explorations from public scrutiny. This echoed an early request made by Vedanta’s oil and gas business in March 2019, Cairn India, to do so reasoning it was only exploration permits that are short-term. Despite opposition by the locals to lack of clarity and public discussion, the ministry introduced a new amendment in January 2020 to the country’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) law exempting oil and gas exploration projects from having to hold public discussions.