In a setback to Anil Agarwal's Vedanta Aluminium (VAL), all 36 residents who participated in the first gram sabha meeting at Serkapadi village of Rayagada district on Thursday rejected a proposal to allow bauxite to be mined in the Niyamgiri hills. The gram sabha was organised following a directive of Supreme Court and is the first of 12 such sabhas. All the 36 villagers belong to the Dongaria Kondh tribe and expressed the view that mining bauxite in the Niyamgiri range across Rayagada and Kalahandi districts would hurt their religious rights and feelings as they consider Niyam Raja their presiding deity. The sabha, overseen by Rayagada district judge Sarat Chandra Mishra, unanimously passed a resolution stating that the Niyamgiri range was sacred for the Dongaria Kondhs as they have been worshipping it for centuries. The proposed mining area, Niyama Danger, is 10 km from the peak that is considered the abode of Niyam Raja. Gram sabha meetings are to be held at 11 more villages in Rayagada and Kalahandi districts. An April 18 order of the Supreme Court had directed the gram sabhas of the two districts to decide in three months issues relating to the mining project and to tribals residing in the area. The next village council meeting will be held in the adjoining Kesarpadi village of Rayagada district on July 22 and the last meeting at Jarpa village, Kalahandi, on August 19. The reports of the 12 gram sabhas will be submitted to the Supreme Court by the collectors of the two districts by the end of August. The apex court had also directed the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to take action in two months after it receives a report from the gram sabhas. Whether Vedanta will be allowed to mine bauxite at the site depends on the verdict of the local tribal residents. At stake is the future of VAL's 1-million-tonne alumina refinery at Lanjigarh, which has been shut since December 2012 due to the non-availability of bauxite, a key raw material. Vedanta has a sale purchase agreement with Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC), which has a mining lease to mine bauxite in the region. To produce one million tonnes of alumina a year, the company needs three million tonnes of bauxite. The company's projects in the state, including the refinery, smelter and power plant, directly and indirectly employ 15,000 people. The SC's April 18 order followed a petition by OMC challenging the MoEF's refusal to grant it stage-II forest clearance, in the absence of which mining not could start. The MoEF refused stage-II clearance although it had earlier accorded stage-I clearance. Vedanta, which shut down the refinery in December 2012, is currently in the process of reopening it by sourcing bauxite from Gujarat. Company officials say the price of bauxite, otherwise available at around Rs 500-600 per tonne, goes up to around Rs 2,400 a tonne after factoring in the cost of transporting it from Gujarat. As per the court directive, officials from Vedanta and OMC were not allowed near the venue of village council meeting.