The West Bengal Government is chasing its dream of setting up a thermal power plant, but on an estuarine land which is unstable. It could be catastrophic
This is a story of double standard morality. This is also a story of how a State Government is hell-bent in getting a thermal power plant approved in a land which is dynamic and might go under the waters any day. This is a story of changing colours for the sake of appeasing a certain vested interest groups.
Back in 2008, the then left Front Government in West Bengal, led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, proposed to set up a chemical hub at Nayachar, a small estuarine located in East Midnapore district, close to the Sundarbans. But the Expert Appraisal Committee of the Union Ministry of Environment & Forests rejected the project on environmental grounds in 2011, and the project was scrapped. At the same time, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who was riding on the anti-left wind through the red bastion, vociferously opposed the project, calling it a cesspool of disaster. Nayachar is in a way tied to the tumultuous events that changed the course of power politics in West Bengal and led to the fall of the left regime. The same chemical hub was the flashpoint of Nandigram conflagration, following which Nayachar was picked by Ms Banerjee.
Cut to 2011: Ms Banerjee took the charge of West Bengal and announced several hundred odd projects and schemes for the people that brought her to power. Nayachar was on her radar too. This time, the State Government proposed an industrial hub, an eco-tourism project and a 1320 MW coal-fired thermal power plant, at the same site.
The EAC had declared Nayachar to be ecologically fragile and unsuitable for any polluting industry in 2012. But, ironically, the same site has been concluded to be perfectly suitable for any thermal power plant as per a report prepared by an expert committee constituted by the Department of Commerce and Industries of Government of West Bengal, recently. Both the reports are based on site visits by prominent scientists.
The Nayachar island, located at the confluence between the Haldi and the Hooghli river near the Haldia port, is an evolving landmass in the Hooghli estuary complex. It is ecologically fragile and sensitive to any alterations due to dynamic nature of erosion. In fact, in Hooghli estuary many islands were emerged and many of them engulfed by thrust of tides, currents and waves.
The Environment & Forests Ministry’s report drafted by ecologist and professor CR Babu, TK Dhar and Jl Mehta — the EAC members who visited the island in 2012 — concluded that, “Nayachar island is unsuitable for location of a thermal power plant or any other polluting industrial complex.” The committee criticised the proposal by noting that there is no example where an estuarine island is used for location of thermal power plants in macrotidal and highly dynamic estuary like Hooghli. It had also suggested that the island should be left as such so that it serves as a natural laboratory for understanding the ecology of mangrove succession. “At best the island can be used for promoting eco-tourism and restoration of existing fish aquaculture farms without any major alterations on the ground and damage to the ecology of the island”, the EAC opined.
Based on the findings of the sub-group of the EAC, 71 per cent and 33 per cent of Nayachar lies below five and four metres from mean sea level, and the bulk of the island outside the embanked aquaculture ponds gets flooded during equinoctial high tides of August and September. There are creeks that are connected to surface drainage channels that criss-cross the island. These creeks support dense mangroves. There are massive prawn farms dotted throughout the central part of the island. Not only that but also the entire island is within the Coastal Regulation Zone.
If a thermal power plant is allowed in this eco-sensitive and severely fragile surface, it is sure to ravage the entire ecology, and impact the mangroves and the prawn farms that dot the island. The emissions from the power plant may adversely impact the intertidal vegetation, critical in maintain a balance of the island in the estuary. About 400 families live on the island in makeshift huts and mainly work in aquaculture farms. At the same time, the location of a thermal power plant on such instable and erosion-prone island endangers the power plants itself.
After facing rejection from the Environment & Forests Ministry, Ms Banerjee’s Government gave ‘charge’ of assessing the site to a committee of scientists, who submitted their ‘version’ to the Ministry recently. The proposal for the power plant was debated again at the EAC meeting held in New Delhi last month.
The report authored by Mr TuhinGhosh, assistant professor at Jadavpur University; Mr Rajat Roy Chowdhury, a technical consultant; Mr T Balasubramanium, Director, Centre of Advanced Study on Marine Biology at Annamalai University and Mr SomenathGhosh, a retired hydraulics engineer, concluded that Nayachar is “stable from the morphological and other criteria, hence suitable for industrial development”.
The State-appointed expert committee went completely opposite to the EAC’s recommendation, suggesting that the coal-fired thermal power plant can be constructed at an elevation by dumping suitable material on the island and the area can be protected with dykes and bunds. The scientists are of view that the island is neither unique nor ecologically-fragile.
Interestingly, the ‘expert committee’ chose to keep Ms Banerjee in good humour by opining that it “is against setting up any hazardous chemical industry in the island but have no objection in setting up a coal-fired thermal power plant and other industries”.
According to the reports, the Rs.8,600 crore power plant was proposed by NRI businessman and chairman of the Universal Success Group Prasoon Mukherjee, who is known to be close to Ms Banerjee. Mr Mukherjee had earlier offered to set up the power plant at Raghunathpur in Purulia district of the State. He further said that since he has coal mines in Indonesia, he could import coal through the Dhamra port in Odisha and ferry it to Purulia by rail, if the State Government is willing to provide him land for the power plant at Raghunathpur.
The Ministry is reported to meet again next month with the expert committee to decide on the project. If it gives a go-ahead to the project it will have serious consequences on the ecology. Being completely based on imported coal from Indonesia and Australia, and with plans to export the entire flyash of the plant to Bangladesh, the project is a tasteless recipe of disaster.
