Country s waste, Gujarat s wealth
the latest of these unwanted industries are three large concentrations of chemical factories coming up in Jhagadia, Dahej and Vilayat industrial estates in Bharuch district. It is estimated that industrial investment amounting to over Rs 25,000 crore will pour into Bharuch in the next few years and this money shall be accompanied by industries discarded elsewhere.
The Rs 1,700-crore copper cathode plant of the Birla group's Indo-Gulf Fertilisers and Chemicals Corporation Limited, which was thrown out of Mangalore after an agitation by the locals, is now silently being erected in Dahej industrial estate in Bharuch. The protests in Mangalore stemmed from fears that air and water pollution caused by the plant would affect onshore and offshore resources.
Similarly, a copper smelter plant to be set up by the Sterlite group of industries was asked to pack up in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. Sterlite's attempts at establishing the plant in Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu have been violently opposed there, too. Yet, without any hesitation on the part of the pollution control machinery in Gujarat, not only is the copper smelter plant coming up, but another scrap-based copper plant is being constructed at Jhagadia.
A second-hand chlorine plant imported from Norway has started production in the Jhagadia industrial estate. The plant had been closed down in Norway as the country was in the process of phasing out highly polluting chlorine-based processes. But Bharuch district alone boasts of four chlorine plants of very high capacity which are already in operation or shall come up in the future. It is already well-known that a number of plants of h-acid, a chemical that has been banned in a number of countries for its highly polluting nature, are operating in Gujarat. As a matter of fact, the Agarwal group of companies, which had to close down its units in Bichri, Rajasthan, following the Supreme Court's orders (see Down To Earth , Vol 4, No 23), is happily operating its h-acid units in Vapi (in south Gujarat).
When K D Rathod, the member secretary of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board, and K B Bhagat of the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation, were asked by Down To Earth if Gujarat is becoming a dumping ground for ecologically-destructive industries, both denied it. Said Rathod, "We look at each case on merit.' But in a situation where complete anarchy seems to be prevailing over the issue of pollution control, such denials bear little meaning. Only a strong people's movement against the continuing destruction occurring in the name of development can bring about any change.