The people of many villages in Bhavnagar district in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat are up in arms against the Central Government, demanding cancellation of public hearing on the environment impact assessment due to the proposed 6,000-MW nuclear power plant to be set up near the coastal Mithi Virdi village in Mahuva taluka. The Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, an organisation working for environment protection, and several voluntary organisations are mobilising people to stage dharna to stop government officials from carrying out public hearing scheduled on Tuesday and drop the nuclear power project altogether. According to samiti convener Rohit Prajapati, the notice for public hearing had been issued only to the people of 24 villages while the impact of the nuclear power plant would be felt in all 152 villages in the region. It was also estimated that out of the 877 hectares of land required for the six reactors of the power plant, including 100 hectares required for the township for the staff members, nearly 80 per cent of the land proposed to be acquired was fertile land that was giving at least two fruit crops a year to the farmers. There was also a chunk of forest land that could not be given for the nuclear power project. Aided by the samiti, the local people have raised objections how government-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited gave a non-accredited consultant like the Engineers India Limited to prepare the Environment Impact Assessment Report (EIA) for the proposed Mithi Virdi nuclear project. Besides pointing out loopholes in the EIL report, the samiti, in a letter to Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan, the Union Environment Department Secretary and others, has also quoted a recent judgment of the Himachal Pradesh High Court directing the pollution control board in that state to “ensure that whenever a public hearing is held, the people of the area are well informed about the public hearing and they are also informed about the benefits and the ill-effects of the project. The pollution control board must have its own machinery and own scientists who should give an independent opinion on the pros and cons of the project.” Claiming that in the case of Mithi Virdi project many of the local people likely to be affected by the project had not even been informed about the pubic hearing, the samiti urged the Union Environment Minister to direct the officials concerned to immediately cancel the public hearing, reject the environment assessment impact report by a non-accredited consultant and pull up the Nuclear Power Corporation for such “illegal actions”. Uncertain about the government’s next move, the voluntary organisations, however, have planned a massive demonstration when the government officials come for the hearing on Tuesday while the state government machinery is gearing up to prevent any untoward incident on that day. The region of Mithi Virdi had already demonstrated people’s power when they successfully launched an agitation a couple of years back to stall the Narendra Modi government’s move to allocate fertile land to a private company to set up a cement plant. THE CAUSE Some social organisations are mobilising people to stage a dharna to stall a public hearing in connection with the proposed Mithi Virdi nuclear power plant The resentment is that the notice for the public hearing has been issued only to the people of 24 villages while all 152 villages in the region will be affected due to the project They want the project to be scrapped saying most of the land proposed to be acquired was fertile, giving two fruit crops annually, while a large chunk was forest land