On March 24, 2018, tens of thousands of Thoothukudi residents flooded the streets of this south Indian coastal town demanding immediate closure of Vedanta Sterlite's copper operations. The evening public meeting was charged – slogan shouting children; palpable youth energy; colourful dances. A horribly outnumbered police force stood helplessly, and eventually thankfully, as the three-hour long meeting wound up with poise, dignity and no untoward incident.
The wave of opposition, and the intensity of the sentiment on display was not merely against Sterlite, but also against the agents of the state – the district administration, police and the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board -- who have done the corporate giant's bidding since the factory was set up in 1998. Many people wrote to me, amazed at how so many people turned up at the public meeting.
The mechanics of the outreach was central to the mobilisation. The influential Merchants Association's call to all their members to down their shutters for a day was the trigger. Artisanal fisherfolk, shank divers, small salt pan manufacturers, the Tuticorin Chamber of Commerce, auto rickshaw unions, mini bus drivers and tea stall vendors quickly joined the call and stayed off work. They called for an immediate halt of the ongoing work to construct a new copper smelter complex in Therku Veerapandiapuram - a suburban locality west of Tuticorin town, and closure of the existing factory.
If so many people turned up, it is because the organisers were able to effectively mobilise the simmering public anger. To understand why people are angry, though, one needs to look at Sterlite's chequered history and the state's complicity with a serious polluter.
In this story about Thoothukudi's pollution, Sterlite is not the villain in the piece. That dubious distinction is reserved for the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and the Ministry of Environment & Forests, who betrayed the people and failed in their responsibilities as regulators.
Who is Sterlite?
Known locally as Sterlite, the 1200 tonne per day, 400,000 tonne per year copper smelter complex is run by Sterlite Copper, a business unit of Vedanta Ltd, which is a subsidiary of London-based metals major Vedanta Resources Plc. Its owner Anil Agarwal has made himself a name as a shrewd and aggressive businessman who made his riches from humble beginnings as a scrap dealer from Bihar. In 2017, his net worth was estimated at $3.3 billion (Rs. 21,485 crores). Vedanta specialises in mining and refining non-ferrous metals – copper, zinc and aluminium.
Born into controversy
In 1992, Sterlite had been allotted 500 acres of land by Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation to set up a 60,000 tonne per annum copper smelter and associated facilities in the coastal district of Ratnagiri.
On July 15, 1993, the District Collector of Ratnagiri sent a letter to Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd asking the company to suspend construction work on the planned smelter. A year-long agitation by local people, fearful of the pollution likely to be caused by the smelter, forced the government to appoint a committee which found that such industries would endanger the region's fragile coastal environment. Read this and this.
Welcome to Tamil Nadu
Within a year, the rejected project had managed to get a foot-hold in Tamil Nadu. On August 1, 1994, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) issued a No Objection Certificate asking the company to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Considering the ecological sensitivity of the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere reserve, the NOC carried a condition stipulating that the factory should be located 25 km from the Gulf of Mannar.
However, the Ministry of Environment and Forests seems to have issued an Environmental Clearance on January 16, 1995 without even waiting for the EIA. In fact, a Consent to Establish issued by the TNPCB in May 1995 authorising Sterlite to commence construction includes a condition requiring Sterlite to submit a Rapid EIA. This licence too contained the same setback condition about Gulf of Mannar.
The setback condition was violated, and the plant was built within 14 km of the Gulf of Mannar. Agitation by Thoothukudi residents was met in fair measure by repression from the police and the district administration.
On October 14, 1996, TNPCB issued the plant a licence to operate, ignoring the violation of its own licence condition on setback from the Gulf of Mannar. The new licence too had conditions, including to develop a greenbelt around 25 metres of the plant and warnings that the licence would be revoked if the factory operations contaminated groundwater or air.
Gas Trouble
Within months of commissioning the plant, public complaints started pouring in, with the District Administration and TNPCB acting in unison to defend the polluter.
For More:://www.thenewsminute.com/article/history-sterlite-thoothukudi
#ban_sterlite.#Save_tuticorin.#Protect_People.
Информация по комментариям в разработке