STERLITE

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.
• On August 20, 1997, staff at Tamil Nadu Electricity Board's sub-station located across the Sterlite
factory complained of headache, coughing and choking due to smoke emanating from the plant.
• On May 5, 1997, women workers at Ramesh Flowers – a dry flowers manufacturing unit near
Sterlite – fell sick and many fainted due to a gas leak form Sterlite. The TNPCB gave the company a
clean chit.
• Now, it's illegal
• In November 1998, acting under directions by the Madras High Court which was hearing a case
filed by National Trust for Clean Environment in 1996, the National Environmental Engineering
Research Institute (NEERI) submitted a study on Sterlite's pollution. The study found that Sterlite
• had failed to develop a greenbelt;
• was producing products it was not authorised to;
• had contaminated the groundwater with arsenic, lead, selenium, arsenic, aluminium and copper;
• may have tampered with the online air monitors;
• had caused gas leaks that hurt people in Ramesh Flowers and the TNEB office;
• had located itself 14 km from notified islands in the Gulf of Mannar, thereby violating the condition
laid out in Consent to Establish.
• On November 23, 1998, the factory was closed for the first of many times by the
Madras High Court. In what was to become a pattern, the factory remained closed
only for a few days.
• Now, it's not
• On December 1, a week later, the Madras High Court modified its earlier order and
allowed the plant to run and asked the Nagpur-based National Environmental
Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) to conduct yet another study. This was the
beginning of a bonanza for NEERI. Between 1999 and 2007, NEERI received Rs.
1.27 crores worth of contracts for various studies, all of which uniformly defended
Sterlite's operations and underplayed its impact.
• After having indicted Sterlite on every count in its November 1998 report, NEERI
submitted its second report on February 9, 1999, less than 45 days later that gave
the plant a clean chit, with recommendations that the factory must be run at full
capacity to conduct a Comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment – a study
that ought to have been conducted before the factory was set up. The study, which
ought to have taken less than a year to complete, was submitted only in July 2003
allowing Sterlite to run at well past its full capacity in the interim. Where the
TNPCB had limited production to 70,000 tonnes per annum, Sterlite manufactured
1,75,242 tonnes of copper anode in 2004.
• On March 2, 1999, 11 workers at the All India Radio station near Sterlite complained of distress due to a gas leak
and had to be hospitalised. The TNPCB and District Administration once again came to Sterlite's rescue and gave
the company a clean chit.
• Gas trouble continued
• Not only that, the TNPCB permitted Sterlite to nearly double its production from 40,000 tonnes per annum to
70,000 tonnes per annum.
• On January 2, 2001, Tuticorin residents complained to TNPCB about the release of toxic wastewater from
Sterlite along with rainwater, following the heavy rains on November 21, November 24 and December 12, 2000.
Sterlite's arsenic laced wastewater reportedly flooded the Silverpuram, Meelavittan and Kaluthaikuttan tanks.
• Fait Accompli
• On September 21, 2004, a Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCMC) team inspected Sterlite. The team
found Sterlite's housekeeping to be shoddy and recommended that environmental clearance for the company's
proposed expansion from 391 to 900 tonnes per day (300,000 tonnes per annum) should not be given. It also
found that a number of plants that were listed as part of the proposed expansion had already been built. The
Committee directed the Pollution Control Board to inspect and take suitable action under the various
environmental laws if the company had indeed constructed production units without licences.
• On September 22, 2004, within a day of the Committee's inspection, the Ministry
of Environment & Forests issued an environmental clearance to Sterlite for plants
it had already begun to construct.
• On November 16, 2004, TNPCB submitted its report. It confirmed that the
company was engaged in unlicenced production. It had manufactured 1,64,236
tonnes that year against a permitted capacity of 70,000 tonnes. It found that an
entire factory complex consisting of copper smelter, refinery, sulphuric acid plant,
phosphoric acid plant, converters and continuous cast rod plants were in varying
stages of completion. The Sulphuric Acid plant had been completed in August 2004
well before the Environment Clearance was issued and commissioned in October.
None of these plants had any construction licence from the TNPCB.
• Law makers, law breakers
• By law, a plant that has been constructed illegally without a Consent to Establish
from the TNPCB cannot be given licence to operate. However, Sterlite appears to
have “convinced” the authorities to the contrary. On April 7, 2005, Dr. Indrani
Chandrasekaran of the MoEF wrote to TNPCB directing it to issue a licence for
Sterlite's expanded capacity. The SCMC too appears to have been compromised, as
Dr. Chandrasekaran's letter states that “Chairman, SCMC, has desired that TNPCB
may now decide regarding granting of consent for expansion to M/s Sterlite. . .”
• Controversies
• Main article: Thoothukudi massacre
• The Thoothukudi Copper Smelting plant has been long-opposed[4] by the local residents for polluting their
environment as well as causing a range of health problems and has been subject to several closures, on grounds of
violating environmental norms.[8]
• The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and the TNPCB have found evidence that
Sterlite contaminated the groundwater, air and soil with its effluents and also violated standards of operation. [4]
• In 2010, the Madras High Court had ordered a shut down of the same plant, for violating environmental
regulations which was subsequently challenged by the group in the Supreme Court.[9]The Supreme Court, in April,
2013 struck down the Madras high court’s order[4] and instead fined Sterlite Rs 100 crore for polluting the
environment and for operating the plant without a renewal of the consents by TNPCB.[8]Post a favorable ruling by
the National Green Tribunal, the plant soon reopened.[4]
• In the meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board on March, 2013 re-ordered a closure of the plant on
grounds of leakage of gas, leading to nausea and skin irritation among local inhabitants.[9][10][11]
• The group has steadfastly denied accusations of any wrongdoing, throughout.[10][8]
• In March and April 2018, there were renewed mass-protests against the company's plans of setting up a second
smelting complex and demands of an entire shutdown of the smelting plants, on grounds of violating
environmental regulations were raised.[12][3] On 22 May 2018 the protests took a deadlier turn as 13 people were
killed and several others injured, following a police shooting. Section 144 was imposed to control the situation.[13]
• On 28 May 2018, the Government of Tamil Nadu ordered the permanent closure of Sterlite plant in Thoothukudi
THANK YOU