The local residents are against the expansion of Vedanta’s Sterlite Copper Unit in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu as it contaminates groundwater. They have been demanding the closure of the smelter for the past 100 days and had announced to take a march to the Tuticorin DM office on Tuesday. The march ended up in a tragedy as 11 people were killed in police firing.
On May 23, a day after the horrific incident, Madras High Court put a stay on the controversial expansion of Vedanta’s 1,200 tonnes per day copper smelter.
The plant, however, was shut since March 27 as the company had started maintenance work for enhancing the capacity of production.According to a Business Standard report, Vedanta’s original copper smelter was built inside the Tuticorin Industrial Complex of SIPCOT (State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamilnadu Ltd) before the environmental clearance regulations of 2006 were put in place.
UPA v/s NDA
In 2009, Vedanta first sought an approval of the Union Environment Ministry for expanding its copper smelter. The Environment Ministry, then under UPA gave a clearance for five years, without requiring public hearings.
In 2013, Vedanta went back to the Union Ministry to get an extension. The Environment Ministry in May 2014 (still under UPA) ordered that cases like Vedanta’s expansion plans need to consult people.
In December 2014, the Modi government reversed this position and in March 2015 the Environment Ministry extended Vedanta’s environmental clearance till December 2018. The government did it even while the question of the need for the public hearing by projects in different kinds of industrial parks was being contested in the courts. This allowed the company to carry out construction, the Business Standard report said.
Vedanta, therefore, is not wrong in claiming that it had legally got an environmental clearance from the Union government to expand the smelter to double the capacity without consulting people.
It is safe to note that environmental rules and regulations and human rights are thrown out of the window in the name of “Ease of doing business” during Modi’s regime. This lies at the root of the tragedy in Tamil Nadu where innocent people were killed in broad daylight by the state police.