In order to visualise the nature of activities associated with operation of a limestone mining and cement manufacture project and to obtain direct perception of the likely ecological impacts of such project activities, a visit to a working mine and cement plant was considered as one of the important prerequisites.

The visit to a working cement plant and a captive limestone mine of M/s ACC Ltd at Barmana, Himachal Pradesh was made on the premise that

• the technology and design features to be adopted for production of cement and mining under proposed project shared commonalities with the cement plant and mining operation of M/s ACC Ltd.
   

• the proposed project and the existing project of M/s ACC Ltd. occur in similar landscape in Himachal Pradesh.

The WII team visited the above-mentioned project site on 8th December 2004 (Plate 3).

The approaches adopted for evaluation of overall project impacts and the development of mitigation plan to address key project impacts are presented in specific sections 6.0 and 7.0 of this report.