It didn’t take much for the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy to promise free power to farmers. The gambit paid off too, as he returned to power in the 2009 assembly elections. The Andhra farmer wasn’t complaining either. But when the time came to honour the commitment, the ‘free’ bit of the deal started pinching the state exchequer. Looking to augment the state’s power output, the Andhra government began clearing the construction of a cluster of six thermal power plants and one nuclear project.
The projects will come up on a 90-km wetland stretch from the Naupada swamps to the Itchapuram lagoon, along the virgin coastline of Andhra’s northern Srikakulam district. Characterised by marshes, swamps and bogs, the wetlands are rich in biodiversity, visited by a wide variety of migratory birds and comparable, in terms of the species they support, to tropical rainforests or coral reefs.
The emergence of power plants here, environmentalists point out, will destroy the local ecology and livelihood. But, typically, the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) reports have been prepared by fly-by-night consultants and are riddled with errors.
East Coast Energy Pvt Ltd in the Santhabommali mandal of Srikakulam was the first to storm the ecologically fragile Naupada swamps. Work on its “super-critical technology” plant—the 2,640- MW Bhavanapadu Thermal Power Plant on 2,050 acres—has already commenced, to the chagrin of local farmers, fisherfolk and agitating environment NGOs.
Filling and raising of marshland in the project area is changing the character of the Naupada swamps and causing irreversible ecological damage. Barely three km away from the site is the Telineelapuram bird sanctuary which the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and Birdlife International recognise as a globally Important Bird Area (IBA).
In an apparent rush to seek environmental clearance for the East Coast Energy project, AP’s special chief secretary (environment, forests, science and technology) in February 2009 submitted a CRZ (coastal regulatory zone) demarcation report and NOC from the AP government to the Union ministry of forests and environment. The report listed the legal status of quarry land and detailed drainage plan. However, what it conveniently ignored were reports on the ecological value of the wetland and migratory bird breeding in Telineelapuram.
Painted storks Telineelapuram sanctuary
The Naupada swamps attract 123 species of migratory birds. In a report submitted to the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife in December 2009, Dr Asad R. Rahmani of BNHS and Prof Asha Rajvanshi of the Wildlife Institute of India called the East Coast project’s EIA report inaccurate and misleading. “The EIA,” the duo pointed out, “was conducted in summer (March-May) when water is at its lowest in the swamps and migratory birds are not seen. The report says there are no migratory routes or endangered animal species within 10 km of the site, which is again false.”
Worried that the project has already cast its ecological footprint, Rahmani and Rajvanshi find fault with the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation for selling the site, classifying it as revenue land. “As it is a wetland, it was considered ‘wasteland’ by district authorities,” they observed. “Ideally, East Coast Energy Pvt Ltd should vacate this ecologically important wetland which should be declared as a conservation reserve in its entirety,” they concluded.
Similar arguments rage against the 495-MW Meghavaram Power thermal plant on 500 acres of swamp abutting the Bhavanapadu plant, and the 2,640-MW plant of the Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC) in Sompeta mandal.
| | | | “The government is presiding over the destruction of natural ecosystems, violating our economic laws.”E.A.S. Sarma, Forum For Better Visakha | | | | |
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Coal-based plants will turn these lush green marshes into hellholes, feels former Union expenditure secretary E.A.S. Sarma, who heads the NGO, Forum for Better Visakha. Sarma says that setting up thermal power plants in wetlands is in clear violation of the 1971 Ramsar International Treaty (which India signed in 1982) on Conservation of Wetlands. “Both the state and central governments are bound by the statutory commitments of this treaty to conserve this wetland stretch in Srikakulam,” says Sarma. “The government is presiding over the destruction of natural ecosystems and the rash manner in which these projects are being set up point to a criminal violation of economic laws of the country.”
Pointing out that East Coast Energy, which had agreed to shift a polluting ash pond and gave up 500 acres of marshy land, has now reclaimed the same land for the Meghavaram project in the guise of a different company, Sarma says corporates are pros at hoodwinking people. Once the Bhavanapadu project is fully operational, a normal rainfall in the area, Sarma fears, can cause flooding in 30,000 acres of farmland because of the altered water routes.
Highlighting that NCC’s power plant on the beela (as the water body is known locally) at Sompeta will affect 1.5 lakh people of 30 villages, Human Rights Forum general secretary V.S. Krishna calls for immediate central intervention. “The thermal plant, which will occupy about 1,882 acres, is encroaching on a wetland area of 1,200 acres. This will devastate the lives of thousands of farmers and fisherfolk and will surely destroy the biodiversity of the swamp. Water from the beela is a lifeline for a two-crop paddy over 5,000 acres. Inland fishing sustains the Kandra and Agnikulashatriya communities. It is preposterous that such a fertile, life-sustaining area could be described by revenue officials as a wasteland,” Krishna fumes.
Meanwhile, K.J.B.V. Subramanyam, vice-president (projects,) NCC Infrastructure Holdings Ltd, maintains that based on expert studies conducted at Sompeta, “the plant site does not fall in an environmentally sensitive ecosystem. There are no threatened categories of plant or animal species as cited in Red Data lists which occur as natural inhabitants. There are no signs of any features of marshy lands in and around the site.”
For several months now, local groups Teerapranta Machhikara Aikya Vedika and Parivaranana Parirakshana Sangham have been agitating against the Sompeta plant under the leadership of Y. Krishna Murthy. “We are ready to sacrifice our lives to prevent the power plant from coming up,” he declares. “NCC bribed panchayat presidents to pass a resolution in favour of the plant without explaining to villagers the consequences.”
There are other plants in the pipeline: the 2,500-MW thermal plant APGenco at Itchapuram, and a nuclear one at the Kovvada Matsyalesam village in Ranasthalam mandal. Sri Surya Chakra Power Corporation is also doing some recce on a site in the district. The plan is to generate 10,000 MW eventually, say government sources. But so blinded is the AP government by the shining megawatts ahead that it’s oblivious to the dark days ahead for its ecology.
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