Study on Jaitapur plant, 5 months after green nod

Five months after 9,960 MW Jaitapur nuclear power plant got environment clearance, its impact on local marine ecology and bio-diversity will be studied. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: May 17, 2011, 24:16:41 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Five months after 9,960 MW Jaitapur nuclear power plant got environment clearance, its impact on local marine ecology and bio-diversity will be studied.

The project proponent Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) on Monday issued letter of intent to five public sector institutions to carryout an intensive ecological study prompting the project critics to ask why such a study was not done before granting environment clearance.

"It is an admission that the (environment) ministry's environment clearance was faulty," said Praful Bidwai, who runs a civil society organization Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh had cleared the project in November 2010 with with 35 conditions based on National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI)'s environment impact assessment, which had failed to study the project's implications on local ecology. Normally, ecological studies are part of the terms of reference for the EIA.

Impact on marine life can be gauged from the fact that NEERI's report raises a possibility of up to five degree Celsius rise in sea level temperature even though the Bombay Natural History Society (BHNS), which is anchoring the study, had said that even 0.5 degree Celsius rise in temperature rise can play havoc.

Scientific institutions around the world have found increase in acidity in sea because of temperature rising resulting from global warming. "No one knows what will be the impact of waste generated and radiation on the sea but still the project has got a go ahead," Bidwai said.

The study costing Rs 5.86 crore will be completed in a year and will cover area of 10 km radius around the plant. The five institutions have also been asked to prepare composite marine and bio-diversity management plans for the area to be studied.

The NPCIL has admitted of public relation nightmare and has decided to nominate experts in Social Science and Environment as a member in the corporation's advisory committee. But, it does not know how to convince the locals on better relief and rehabilitation package being offered.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh made an open claim that NPCIL's public communication skills were poor after he faced protest by students of Tata Institute for Social Sciences at Mumbai last week. "TISS is located just across the compound wall (Department of Atomic Energy) and the students were complaining that there was no effort for dialogue," Ramesh said, in a letter to NPCIL.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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