After Adani, OCCRP targets Vedanta, says company lobbied to weaken environmental laws during COVID-19 pandemic

Vedanta ran a ‘covert’ lobbying campaign to weaken key environmental regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic, said the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in an article on Thursday.

As per the OCCRP article, Vedanta Group Chairman Anil Agarwal, in January 2021, told former environment minister Prakash Javadekar that the government could add “impetus” to India’s rapid economic recovery by allowing mining companies to boost production by up to 50% without having to secure new environmental clearances.

Vedanta's oil business, Cairn India, also successfully lobbied to have public hearings scrapped for exploratory drilling in oil blocks it won in government auctions, the report said.

Vedanta told OCCRP that as "one of the leading natural resources organizations in India" the company operated “with an objective of import substitution by enhancing domestic production in a sustainable manner.”

"In view of the same, continuous representations are submitted for consideration to the Government in the best interest of national development and India's march towards self-reliance in natural resources," a company spokesperson told OCCRP.

Earlier, OCCRP had published a report on Adani Group that said the group family used “opaque” funds to invest in stocks.