Environment Support Group is a group of activists, researchers, lawyers and academicians based in Bangalore, who work directly with civil society groups and local village communities in their struggles for justice, development and a safe environment by extending research, advocacy and legal support in the region of Karnataka. We do not claim to represent any particular community's cause here, for we believe it is only those who suffer the impacts that can express fully their concerns and in their very own language. However, it would be appropriate for us to say that we have been with every one of the communities whose experiences we are sharing now, in all times.

We have chosen for this occasion to focus on significant issues of concern in the district of Dakshina Kannada straddling across the highly sensitive ecosystems ranging from the coast to the high reaches of the Western Ghats. Distinctly characterised in its bio-geographic and cultural uniqueness, this is a region that has witnessed a very high degree of public reaction to issues of environmental concern in the recent past.

Dakshina Kannada

Over 22 major rivers, and hundreds of tributaries and streams crisscross the tiny Dakshina Kannada with an area of about 8,500 sq. kms. The estuaries formed are considered the last few left on the west coast of India which remain unpolluted, and an ironical indicator of this fact is that most of the fishery produce are exported to sensitive markets in Europe and Asia where public health considerations are rated very high. Dakshina Kannada, along with its contiguous districts to the north and the east, comprise a region that is probably the last stretch where there is some good forest left in the Western Ghats.

Karnataka's Industrial Capital?

Such a region has now been targetted for a massive programme of industrialisation and infrastructure development, and the Government's clear intention is to make it the "industrial capital" of Karnataka. Political dreams include creating a Bombay type situation out of the Mangalore-Udupi region hugging the coast along the National Highway 17. To realise this dream, the State Government is engaged in intense lobbying with multilateral funding agencies, including the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, for a massive aid package to develop the sea-port, airport, railway, road and urban infrastructure in order to entice massive investment of private capital, particularly from the primary industry sector.

In a sense it would not be far from the truth to state that the Dakshina Kannada region is a "test tube" case where the adverse impacts of the WB-IMF influenced New Economic Policy (NEP) initiated by
the Congress earlier in the decade are already being felt. This is so, particularly given the distinct socio-economic, ecological and cultural character of the region.

If the State-Corporate-multilateral agency consortia succeed in their grand scheme, the district will no longer be known for its verdant agriculture that sustains most of the nearly 30 lakh population of the district, fisheries that provide base to the over 3 lakh Mogaveera community, the diverse forest ecosystems that sustain a variety of endemic flora and fauna and the unique and ancient culture represented best by the Tuluvas. What will replace them will be a jungle of steel and concrete, so massive, that it would not be wrong to describe the prospective situation as one of creating a 60 kms long industrial-urban corridor, which would compare well with the chaos and pollution of the Bombay-Thane corridor.

Present investment plans include the setting up of a 1,000 MW coal based thermal power station by the Cogentrix and China Light and Power Company joint venture Mangalore Power Company at Nandikur on the banks of the Mulki estuary, and another 1,000 MW coal-based thermal power plant adjacent to it by the Nagarjuna Power Company. On the coast there would be three barge mounted power plants, with investing companies emerging one each from the US, Britain and Germany, with a total installed capacity nearing 500 MW. Nagarjuna has also advanced in its plans to invest in a 2 million tonnes per annum production export oriented steel plant in collaboration with Klockner of Germany.

Initial experience with mega-industries

A 9 million tonne per annum refinery has already been established by the Birla-led Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd. which in keeping with the Birla tradition has rendered large stretches of paddies useless for agriculture by "irrigating" them on the sly with oil sludge, and as a side-benefit rendering ground water un-potable for some generations at least in several villages surrounding the facility.

Competing, or perhaps surpassing in it polluting potency, is MRPL's neighbour, BASF of Germany, which has started massive production of tannery dispersions dyes, several of which, by the admission of a German Parliamentarian, are not allowed for production in the home country.

Together, MRPL and BASF have common conduit to the sea, discharging their rich cocktail of heavily metallised effluents in sufficient enough quantities, that would soon not only rob the local fisherfolk of the prestige of exporting their produce to gourmet restaurants in Europe and Japan, but might even put the slippery beasts of the sea, beyond the palate of us sub-ordinate Indians given our even more sub- ordinated concerns for public health.

On the eve of Independence Day  in 1995, the fisherfolk led by the Mogaveera Mahajana Sangha initiated Dakshina Kannada Meenugarara Parisara Samrakshana Samithi, rose to the occasion and rallied in thousands, resolving that they will never tolerate the pollution of the sea and their bowl of rice. Despite braving police bullets, State repression and politico-corporate brainwashing of the public at large for over a year, political deceit has put paid to their determination of not ever allowing MRPL and BASF of polluting the sea. The pipes flow full into the sea with untreated effluents today, and on occassions into neighbouring paddies too, even as the Government's commitment to conduct "carrying capacity" studies of the region prior to clearing any more mega industries, is evident only in the text of the speeches delivered on some august occassions by His Excellency the Governor.

The balance sheets of MRPL and BASF are healthy. But not the health of hundreds of families displaced or those living in the surroundings of these facilities. Most families were unnecessarily dispossessed of their life and character-sustaining lands by State sponsored instruments in order to satiate the real estate lucre of these companies, who under various pretences acquired prime agricultural land far in excess of actual requirements. Reduced to poverty and despair, indebted with no reliable sustenance, indignified without avocation, the tragedy of the situation is such that some amongst the younger generation has chosen death to life.

Greater would have been the tragedy of the region had the Birlas also succeeded in pushing their Indo-Gulf Copper Smelting project adjacent to the refinery. Thankfully, timely citizen action and the progressive response of a few conscientious Government officials forced this rogue company to abandon plans to invest in the project, in what can be described as the first Environmental Public Hearing in the State, held during 1994. The Birlas, however, had the last laugh, relocating this most hazardous of industrial processes in the traditional dumping ground of India - Gujarat.

For those threatened with displacement, the respite has been momentary though, as those same lands from which the Smelter fled, comprising 1,500 acres of verdant paddies, floodplains and mangroves, are now allocated to Nagarjuna, to put up their steel plant, energised by the Supreme Court dismissal of a petition against the project. The unrelenting Birlas still see the prospect of gaining access to 500 acres of equally pristine land, in the same area, for a textiles project now by Grasim.

Energy Capital of Cogentrix!

A greater calamity awaits the district presently, as the new BJP led Government at the Centre confirms its resolve to push all "fast-track" power projects into the construction stage by the year end - the caveat, of course, being - no legal hassles please.

Leading the 5 thermal power projects to be located within 15 kms of each other in the district is the extremely-slowed-down Cogentrix power project. From the time they decided to invest in 1992, this insignificantly small US company whose total installed capacity from 9 projects does not exceed 900 MW, is yet to realise that resorting to political short-cuts by whatever means can only gain them short- term futures. The question that begs attention is whether our Government has learnt any lessons from the fact that Cogentrix was kicked out of deals because of corrupt practices in Puerto-Rico and Tennessee Valley, where aware Governments preferred to secure economically viable and environmentally safe projects for their citizens, never mind the short-term problems of power cuts.

The urgency with which various clearances have been accorded to the project raises serious questions about why our Governments pursues the project still with aggressive intent, backed as it is by constant monitoring of high officials of the US Government. For whatever considerations, two US Commerce Secretaries during the past three years have found time in their otherwise busy schedules to make way to Bangalore and hold "discussions" with their counterparts on the progress achieved on this project. Our Chief Ministers from every political shade over the past five years, one of whom even rose to the mighty Prime Ministerial office, have time and again reminded the public that they will ensure this project gets implemented, come what may!

Why Cogentrix?

Why such resolve to defend Cogentrix one may ask, despite :
 

• An all-party unanimous resolution of the Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat rejecting the location of the project on environmental grounds.
• The Supreme Court appointed NEERI commission endorsing completely the fears of the local communities that the project is incompatible with endogenous development choices befitting the region, that the project is not environmentally viable whatever be the safeguards, and that there were fundamental violations in the environmental clearances accorded to the project.
• The Karnataka Department of Environment and Forests and DANIDA collaborated "Environment Master Plan Study" conducted over four years at a cost exceeding Rs. 20 crores clearly prescribing a development paradigm for the district more suited with its natural resource base, and taking extraordinary precautions in ensuring appropriate land use development.
• The Sagardhara Report into the Rapid EIA of Cogentrix, probably the only fast element of the project, exposing how the Tata Consultancy fudged air pollution models to project pollution levels much lower than reality amongst a whole range of other lies.
• Satellite imagery studies conducted by the Centre for Ecological Sciences of the Indian Institute of Science proving beyond doubt that the project was being located in an extremely fertile agricultural region characterised by bubbling streams, productive estuaries and thick vegetation. In contrast the State Government doctored Chockalingam report found the area totally degraded and fit for location of a thermal power station.
• The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board swearing on oath in the High Court of Karnataka that they never held the mandatory "Public Hearing" as claimed earlier in their NOC, even as the Ministry of Environment and Forests continued with the bluff in their environmental clearance that the Hearing had been held indeed. The Court, not surprisingly, preferred the latter statement!
• A letter of Ron Somers to the Pollution Control Board being provided as evidence in Court that the project developers had no intention of conducting an EIA for the project, two years after the conditional NOC was granted by the Board and a year after the conditional environmental clearance was provided by MoEF, both of which stated in no uncertain terms that non-compliance of conditions would lead to revocation of clearances granted.
• A comprehensive Independent Review of the Power Purchase Agreement of the project commissioned by the Karnataka Government at a cost of US $ 100,000 and conducted by the world reknowned Science Applications International Centre of the US confirming public suspicions that the project cost was overrated, by upto 40%, and most of the project risks were shared by the Karnataka Electricity Board, who in turn would pass the burden onto the consumer. Shocked by the findings, the Government preferred to keep this report under wraps, until exposed by us in the Court of law.
• No action being initiated in a case made out by the petitioners in a Memorandum to the Chief Justice of India that a copy of the judgement in Janajagriti Samithi vs. State of Karnataka, may have been available to Ron Somers, MD of Cogentrix, prior to the delivery of the same on 29 August 1997. For he was seen holding an impromptu Press Conference with an all-ready Press Release within the Court Hall even as the operative part of the judgement was being read out. And that Justice Rajendra Babu in whose Court such events took place, and who had initially asked the petitioners to file a memo, later summoned our advocate Krishna Bhat to his chambers and in the presence of the Cogentrix advocate Raghavan, who was already present, suggested to Bhat, with sufficient camraderie suited for the occasion, to make-do with an apology! In the true spirit of Public Interest Litigants, the memorandum was preferred and the matter made public through the press.

Enquiry into Cogentrix's Corruption stayed

This project has been favoured at all levels, raising great suspicions over what benefits accrued to those extending such favours. Justice seemed to have been rendered when, finally, the High Court Division Bench comprising Chief Justice R. P. Sethi and Justice Gopalagowda, ordered an high level CBI enquiry into the Cogentrix deal based on the Public Interest Petition filed by Arun Kumar Agarwal.

The landmark judgement rigorously went into every detail of the charges made and evidences provided by the petitioner, and held that such grave consequences were involved for the public interest were not a thorough enquiry held over allegations that large bribes had been paid in securing various clearances by Cogentrix. To establish the truth, therefore, the Court ordered the State Government to initiate the enquiry by filing an FIR. Against all public expectations, the State has preferred an appeal against the judgement in the Supreme Court. On the basis of which the Supreme Court Bench led by Chief Justice Punchi and comprising of Justice Kirpal and Justice Rajendra Babu has ordered a stay on the operation of the High Court judgement.

And now Nagarjuna power plant

The resolve to fight remains, and gets strengthened by the day, even as the State and Union Governments in their rhetoric continue to push the Cogentrix project. In anticipation that all legal hurdles will soon be cleared, and despite cases against the project still pending in Court, the Union Government has accorded final environmental clearance to the Nagarjuna Power project. And the State Government has approved a Rs. 800 crore transmission corridor from Nandikur to Bangalore, over a distance of over 600 kms., the first such infrastructure project to be set up in the country in the private sector, and that by National Grid of the UK.

All this:
 

• Without conducting a Public Hearing.
• Without considering technical objections from within the Ministry of Environment that the EIA submitted by Nagarjuna for their thermal plant provided air-pollution modelling data of Bombay, a 1,000 kms north of the proposed location at Nandikur!
• Without considering all the concerns raised in the DANIDA, NEERI and Sagardhara reports, as directed by the High Court in the Cogentrix case.
• Without considering that the coal to be imported from South Africa, Indonesia and Australia for the Cogentrix and Nagarjuna projects combined, simply cannot be unloaded during the monsoon months due to rough seas near Nandikur. This fact denied all the while when awaiting clearances by Cogentrix, has been admitted as being true by Ron Somers, in his "confidential letter" to the Member Secretary of the Karnataka Pollution Control Board, who in turn has decided to remain tight lipped for whatever reasons or considerations
• Allowing Nagarjuna to draw water from the Mulki river, a benefit withdrawn earlier to the Cogentrix project, after it was proved beyond doubt that there was absolutely not enough quantum to sustain one 1,000 MW thermal power plant, let alone two.
• Without considering any of the objections raised by Janajagriti Samithi that the region was simply not suited for locating coal-based thermal power stations given the high potential for contamination of the shallow ground water aquifers and the threat to sensitive estuarine, marine and forest ecosystems.

The interests of Indian private capital and of multinational concerns are paramount for the Government, who believe more in defending the Corporate sector, than the Constitutional 73rd or 74th Amendments. Deliberately avoiding the constitution of District Planning Committees, so that no further hurdles are created by the aware citizenry to such pet projects, the State Government has centralised powers to such an extent that no more does it make sense to suggest ours is a decentralised democracy. Rather, it would be facing the truth to admit that the dictates of the Bretton Woods institutions are more acutely listened to.

For when the Corporators of Mangalore City Corporation agitate and write letters to all concerned that mega industries should not be located in the district for the simple reason that there is no water for the industries and Mangalore city combined from the Nethravathi river, they are a nuisance. Yet when fly-by-night consultants of multilateral agencies arrive at the same conclusion, it becomes an extraordinary finding for our IAS babus and Mantris alike. And high-technology solutions, from desalination plants to more dams, are happily proposed and accepted, so long as they entail lucrative and entertaining foreign jaunts and hefty dollar loans.

What now?

The prognosis of the future is bleak for local communities threatened by evacuation any time now in the villages of Nandikur, Padubidri, Nadsal, Hejamadi, Yellur, etc. For over a decade now, by systematic campaigning and litigation they have successfully resisted the location of two power plants in the region, including a 2,400 MW project proposed by NTPC in technical and financial support from the erstwhile USSR. Their appeal for just development has been denied this time around against the Cogentrix project.
Yet they continue to cultivate their lands and go out to fish in the sea, unrelenting in their belief that, in the end, justice will be served, if not through Courts, through the intervention of their spirituality. In their worship of hundreds of Nagabanas and Bootha Sthanas, temples, mosques and churches the project affected communities continue to celebrate life. Their full use of all the social infrastructure created over time including schools, colleges, hospitals, anganavadis, demonstrate their resolve to stay resident on lands that are notified for acquisition. Their only request of you - solidarity in action, from wherever that might be.

Prepared by Leo F. Saldanha, with research support from Neetha Shetty, D. G. Poornima and K. R. Mallesha.

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