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Plants that do not grow
Mylapalli Laxmi (29), a mother of two, has heard a nuclear power plant with US collaboration will come up in her village.
Mylapalli Laxmi (29), a mother of two, has heard a nuclear power plant with US collaboration will come up in her village.
Her husband catches fish in the sea, 200 metres from her home.
“We have lived here (Kovvada village) for generations. Now we are told that our land, houses and everything that we created will be taken away to build a nuclear power plant,” she said.
“We will not allow this to happen.”
Nuclear power accounts for about 4 per cent of the energy produced in the country. To increase it to more than 10 per cent, India has signed deals for the supply of nuclear fuel with the US, France and Kazakhstan. However, nothing much happened on the ground except plans for expansions of existing plants and setting up units in Maharashtra, Orissa, Haryana, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.
The issue is more than acquisition of land. The matter concerns the safety of those who work at the plants and also those who live in the nearby areas, as evidenced in the Kaiga nuclear power plant incident of November 24. Workers there were found exposed to high degrees of nuclear radiation, which can lead to cancer and genetic disorders. A similar incident had been observed in Tarapur in May 2004.
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), which is mandated to build the plant with tech know-how from a US company (as part of the Indo-US nuclear deal), has sought to acquire 800 acres in Kovvada village (680 km north-east of Hyderabad). This means the village will vanish. NPCIL is reportedly seeking another 9,200 acres (one acre = 43,560 square feet) around the plant as a buffer zone. If that happens, 22 more villages will go.
“The people are agitated. They are not going to vacate easily,” said G. Hari Babu, Congress member of the legislative council from the area, adding, “there are larger issues such as radioactivity, pollution, and the effects on fish, bovine creatures and groundwater.”
“We have made a representation to the Prime Minister. Let us see what the decision is,” he added.
Former Union Power Secretary E.A.S. Sarma said: “It is lack of vision. You have abundant gas available in the nearby KG basin but you take the gas through thousands of kilometres of pipelines to West and North India rather than using it to generate power here. I can understand a nuclear power plant being set up in Kerala or states where there is no coal or gas.”
Bengal: Haripur, around 185 km southwest of Kolkata, was chosen as the site for a proposed 9,400 MW nuclear power plant.
The West Bengal government zeroed in on the land West Midnapore in 2006, with a team from NPCIL visiting the spot in November of the same year.
Not much progress has been made in the past three years. While NPCIL planned to make the plant operational by 2015, the state government later seemed reluctant on the project.
“Earlier in 2006, when the government tried to survey the land, it faced strong protests, not just from environmentalists but also from locals. It doesn’t want to risk another hot spot before the assembly polls in 2011,” said a senior official, not authorised to talk to the media.
Those opposed to the nuclear power plant point out that almost 250,000 fishermen live there with their families. The National Fish Workers’ Forum (NFWF) is leading the agitation against the plant.
NFWF convener and Haripur resident Debashis Shyamal pointed out that the coastal belt from Haripur to Digha (200 km south of Kolkata) earned around Rs 360 crore as revenue from marine products exports.
“A nuclear plant, requiring millions of tonnes of fresh water to cool its reactors, will deplete the water-table and destroy our marine-based economy,” he said.
Saurashtra: Following the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, a nuclear power plant has been proposed in Mithivirdi village, about 50 km from Bhavnagar (a Saurashtra town around 200 km south of Ahmedabad).
It is supposed to have a capacity of 6,000 MW and an estimated investment of Rs 60,000 crore. The project, to be executed by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd, requires about 2,450 acres. A survey has been carried out for this.
But farmers and inhabitants of the site of the plant are protesting against the proposal even before the issues of compensation have come up.
“The villagers are dependent on agriculture. The land is fertile with no water problem. Except for a one-time payment of compensation, we will not be given any jobs in the highly technical project. Then why should we give our land for the project, which would eventually drive us out of here,” said Shakti Sinh Gohil (40), who owns about 10 hectares.
“Our biggest fear is an accident similar to what happened in Chernobyl (Ukraine) in 1986 and we have recent cases like the leakage at the Kaiga power plant. We suspect how effectively our governments can run this project,” Gohil said.
Ratnagiri:In Jaitapur, Ratnagiri district (300 km south of Mumbai), villagers have refused to accept compensation for parting with their land on which a nuclear power plant is supposed to come up.
The land acquisition process for the plant, to be built with French collaboration, has met with opposition from residents. Only seven villagers have accepted compensation cheques.
The Maharashtra government acquired 583 acres under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, for the Indo-French nuclear plant. This land will be used to build utilities for the staff at the power plant.
In September 2008, France became the first country to sign an agreement on civil nuclear co-operation with India after the Nuclear Suppliers Group lifted restrictions on the supply of n-fuel.
Of the 938 hectares on which the plant is supposed to come up, 94 per cent land is non-agricultural and privately owned. While officials of NPCIL have said that they are open to dialogue, villagers do not want to give their land.
They said that the compensation, calculated at Rs 3 per square foot, was a pittance.
The nuclear power plants in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra are some of the ones that are either in the planning stage (Jaitapur) and are being proposed. With new projects getting stuck in the manner described, the only solution is to expand the ones that have already been set up.
