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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  Farmers walk out of Gujarat nuclear plant public hearing
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Farmers walk out of Gujarat nuclear plant public hearing

Villagers refuse to part with their land for a 6,000MW nuclear plant which is expected to come up by 2022-23

Villagers shout slogans after boycotting a public hearing for a proposed nuclear plant, near Bhavnagar, Gujarat, on Tuesday. Photo: AP Photo/Ajit Solanki (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)Premium
Villagers shout slogans after boycotting a public hearing for a proposed nuclear plant, near Bhavnagar, Gujarat, on Tuesday. Photo: AP Photo/Ajit Solanki
(AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)

Ahmedabad: We will not give away our fertile land for the nuclear project. What will we do without our land? Where will we go?" asks Shaktisinh Gohil, village head and a farmer of Jasapara village in Bhavnagar district of Gujarat where state-run Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL) plans to build a 6,000 megawatts (MW) nuclear power plant—the first after India and the US signed the civil nuclear agreement in 2008.

Gohil, who owns a mango orchard in the area known for its Sosiya variety, is among the thousands of villagers who walked out of the environmental public hearing on Tuesday, called by the district collectorate and the Gujarat State Pollution Control Board (GPCB).

In 2012, US-based Westinghouse Electric Co. Llc and NPCIL signed an agreement for the construction work. The project, to be done in three stages, is expected to be completed by 2022-23.

Gohil says they had rejected the proposal of parting with their land a few years ago.

Since 2009, when the Indian government gave an in-principle approval to the 50,000 crore Mithivirdi nuclear project, anti-nuclear activists and scientists have been distributing pamphlets and showing films on what happened at nuclear plants in Russia’s Chernobyl and Fukushima in Japan.

Mithivirdi was chosen as a preferred site by NPCIL after consulting the state government, which decided to scrap its proposed port project at the same location.

Gohil alleges that the Tuesday hearing was on the basis of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) by Engineers India Ltd, which did not have the necessary accreditation.

Even GPCB raised this issue about a month ago and had sought a clarification from NPCIL, according to a senior state government official.

An NPCIL executive, who oversees the Mithivirdi project, said Gohil’s fears were misplaced.

“No agency in India is accredited to assess nuclear power projects by National Accreditation Board for Education and Training (NABET). EIL had applied (to NABET) for accredition in 2010. NABET has given permission to EIL to carry out EIA. Besides, all NPCIL’s projects are assessed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) as far as radioactive emissions is concerned," he said on condition of anonymity.

NPCIL plans to acquire 777ha of land to build a 1,000MW nuclear project, mainly covering Jasapara and two other nearby villages. NPCIL also proposes to acquire another 100ha to build a township for its employees.

“We have maintained in our environment study that 80% of the land to be acquired is agricultural land and we are ready to pay compensation for it, but the villagers are not ready to listen. They insist that we take the project elsewhere," said the official.

As per the EIA, the project is not anticipated to have any significant environmental impact on local flora, fauna or human activities.

The report details the planned systems to manage gaseous, liquid and solid radioactive wastes and keep discharges below the required limits in normal operation as well as the passive safety design and engineered safety features of the plant.

The project would be “environmentally benign and sustainable" and would provide “much-needed electricity with minimal environmental impact", it says.

A.V. Shah, regional officer of Bhavnagar GPCB, said that the hearing, attended by 4,000 people, was completed and the findings would be submitted to the ministry of forest and environment department.

“We will submit everything to the ministry, including people’s concerns... We have received 47 written representations from various stake holders in the project," Shah said.

Krishnakant Chauhan of Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, a non-profit working on environment issues in Gujarat, said the public hearing committee did not give a chance to the villagers to raise their concerns.

“Asia’s largest ship recycling yards at Alang, hardly 10km from the nuclear site, will also be affected if this nuclear project comes up," he said.

An official at the Gujarat Maritime Board, the state regulator for ports, said there have been talks in the past of re-location of a part of Alang shipyard as it was perceived to be in the prescribed danger limit of a proposed plant. However, no concrete plan has come up so far.

The NPCIL official maintained that Alang will not be affected by the nuclear project.

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Published: 05 Mar 2013, 10:48 PM IST
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