BackGreen panel seeks safety audit for Sterlite’s Tuticorin unit
Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board had shut the copper smelter on 23 March following an alleged leak of sulphur dioxide gas
Premium(Rajan/Mint)
New Delhi: A committee of the national green tribunal (NGT) has recommended a number of corrective measures for Sterlite Industries India Ltd’s copper smelter in Tuticorin, including conducting safety audits, risk-assessment studies and emergency offsite demonstrations.
The panel, set up to look into emissions by the Sterlite smelter, also wants the company to dispose of about 1.4 million tonnes of copper slag and 410,000 tonnes of gypsum.
In its report, submitted to the environmental court on Wednesday and which Mint has reviewed, the panel also said “the industry should put in place a system to inform the villagers downwind immediately in case of any accident at the plant."
The company spokesperson declined to comment.
The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) shut the Sterlite smelter on 23 March following an alleged leak of sulphur dioxide gas.
The plant, the country’s biggest producer of copper at 400,000 tonnes a year, remained shut for more than two months, squeezing domestic supply and boosting imports.
It was allowed to operate again on 31 May after obtaining interim relief from a bench headed by green tribunal chairperson Swatanter Kumar.
The green court set up the committee on the same day to inspect the unit while it was operating at its maximum capacity, and collect ambient air samples and prepare a comparative data report.
Member secretaries of the central and Tamil Nadu pollution control boards, an environmental engineer from TNPCB and two professors from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, were appointed as panel members.
The report, which makes 25 recommendations in all, said Sterlite should also provide green cover for all the secured landfills. It also suggested that the company should install a monitoring system to measure gaseous pollutants from the plant, “especially for SO2 (sulphur dioxide) since the unit handles large quantity of SO2."
The panel, however, said it could not draw “much inference" on the effect of emissions from the Tuticorin copper smelter on air quality during its study in June because of strong winds that “helped in immediate dispersion of the pollutants".
The environment court on Wednesday said the plant will remain open until at least 15 July, when the next meeting is scheduled. The bench said it has taken the panel’s report on record and given time to the counsel of both Sterlite and TNPCB to respond to the findings.
The report will also be submitted to the Supreme Court since TNPCB had moved an appeal there in June against the interim order of the green court allowing the smelter to function.
Sterlite is a unit of London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc. that is controlled by non-resident Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal.
Previously, in a separate case concerning the same smelter, the apex court on 2 April had imposed a ₹ 100 crore fine on Sterlite “for having polluted the environment in the vicinity of its plant". But it set aside a 2010 directive of the Madras high court to permanently close the Tuticorin smelter on environmental concerns, observing the plant contributes “substantially to the copper production in India, and copper is used in defence, electricity, automobile, construction and infrastructure, etc".
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