While the government talks about saving prime agricultural land from industry, a pitched battle between Alphonso growers and a power project developer is raging in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district. The environment ministry has cleared a 1,200MW thermal power plant by JSW Energy Limited in the heart of the famous mango-exporting belt despite admitting that the studies to understand the impact of pollution from the thermal plant do not exist yet. Ironically, the environment ministry's noting, claiming that the impact study of thermal power plant pollution on mangoes would take another four years, comes as part of rejection of another application filed by the same company asking for expansion of the Ratnagiri plant to 4,400MW. Ratnagiri is a traditional producer of Alphonso mangoes that are as much in demand in the international market as in the domestic one. The environment ministry has said, "Since the study will take at least four years, it would be premature to take any decision regarding the further expansion of the just sanctioned power project.' But, the setting up of the 1,200MW plant was cleared without caring for such studies. The original clearance for the 1,200MW plant too has come up for scrutiny in the court for violations of environmental laws. It is mandatory for project developers to share full environmental impact reports with the affected public under the environment impact assessment notification of the Environment Protection Act. But the company only shared its executive summary with the public. To compound their folly, the EIA report submitted finally to the government was different from the one shared with the public. Non-compliance of these regulations itself has earlier invited cancellation of projects. The environment ministry also seems to have overlooked the glaring inaccuracies in the application filed by JSW like calling dogs and cats as the region's "endemic species'. The missteps by the government and the applicant gets deeper. Neither used the reference to the regional land use plan that does not list thermal power plants as a permissible activity but instead states that "good agricultural lands or lands with good agro-horticultural potential may not be deprived of their potential while locating industries in the "Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg area'. BITTER BATTLE: The environment ministry has cleared a 1,200MW thermal power plant in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra