Gujarat villagers, environmentalists oppose coastal zone nod to Mithi Virdi nuclear plant

Off Alang shipbreaking yard

Two separate letters, one by senior Vadodara-based environmentalists of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, and the other by local village heads, have strongly opposed the recent coastal regulatory zone (CRZ) clearance to the proposed Mithi Virdi Nuclear Power Plant in Bhavnagar district, Gujarat. The letters say, the minutes of the 144th meeting of Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India (January 28-30, 2015) are "totally vague” about the reasons for offering the nod.
The second letter, containing nearly the same content the first one, has been signed, among others, by Shaktisinh H Gohil, sarpanch, Jaspara village; Samuben Hirabhai Dabhi, sarpanch, Mithi Virdi village; Vilasba Dharmendrasinh Gohil, sarpanch, Mandva village; and Pruthvirajsinh.M. Gohil, sarpanch, Khadarpar village. The first letter has been signed by Rohit Prajapati, Krishnakant and Swati Desai.
“The CRZ rules mandate that EAC should have visited the site and consulted the local villagers who stand to be affected by the proposed project, which according to the local villagers as well as the local panchayats, never happened”, the letters, written to EAC chairman Anil Razdan, adding, “Neither the local villagers nor public have any knowledge as to what basis the EAC recommended the CRZ clearance.”
Pointing out that the CRZ clearance has been claimed to have been given because a “groyne-based channel type seawater intake system” has been proposed “with the sump at the shore”, the letters say, “A detailed study considering the impact of the groyne on the long-shore drift of sediments and the likely pattern of erosion/accretion that may result has yet to be conducted, without which CRZ clearance should not be granted.”
Worse, the letters say, the minutes are “silent about the potential danger posed to the coastal environment by the project's proximity to Alang Sosiya Ship Breaking Yard, functioning on stretches over 10 km in the immediate vicinity of the proposed nuclear power plant. “In fact, parts of the Yard fall within the Village Jaspara, one of the villages whose land is to be acquired by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL), the Government of India body which is implementing the project.
“The entire coastal area adjacent to the Yard is contaminated with solid, liquid, gaseous and hazardous waste including paint chips, asbestos, oily sludge, used/spent oil, toxic chemicals, radioactive waste, PCBs and ACMs”, the letters point out, adding, “The comprehensive impact of the Mithi Virdi Project on an already critically-polluted coastal area with high ecological value has not been taken into account by the EAC in its recommendation for CRZ clearance.”
The letters further say, “In all, 152 villages with a population of more than 200,000 in 30 km radius of the proposed nuclear power plant will be adversely affected by the project… The extraction of fresh water by the proposed plant and its impact on the local agriculture-dependent economy has not been mentioned in the consideration for CRZ.”
The letters demand that that the EAC should “immediately withdraw its recommendation for the CRZ clearance, as it has failed to take into consideration crucial components related to the coastal environment at Mithi Virdi area”, adding, at the same time, the EAC should make public all the details including the study for the proposed nuclear power plant, the documents such as the main application of the NPCIL for CRZ clearance, the reasons for which it recommends CRZ clearance, and so on.
They simultaneously demand that all citizens, particularly the residents and local bodies at Mithi Virdi area, are given at least a month’s time to register their response to the CRZ clearance recommendation as mandated by the law.

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog