Environment Min issues show-cause notice to Nirma cement factory

NEW DELHI: The environment ministry on Saturday issued a show cause to Nirma’s cement factory project in the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat for “permanent suspension of work and revocation of the environment clearance”, accorded to it in December 2008.

The notice was issued as continued work on the cement plant would damage the wetland area on which it was located. The ministry has asked Nirma to stop all construction work at site. The company will be given a personal hearing, if it so desires, on March 16-17.

The show cause notice comes on the back of a report and site visit by an environment ministry appointed expert committee headed by CK Varshney. The report of the Varshney committee was examined by the expert appraisal committee on industry of the environment ministry.

The proposed cement plant was to be built over the Samadhiyala Bhandara (reservoir) was constructed by the state government in 2000 to check salinity ingress. This construction of this large water body has helped reduce the salinity of the area and improved the recharging of the ground water. Given the benefits, local farmers and villagers have been opposed the project. The environmental clearance was challenged in the Gujarat high Court, where the order went in favour of Nirma. Subsequently, a special leave petition has been filed in the Supreme Court by the Shree Mahua Bhandara Khetewadi Priyavaran Bachav Samiti.

The environment ministry appointed a seven-member expert committee headed by CK Varshney to undertake a site visit and consider the facts of the project. The committee was appointed in January on the basis of concerns raised about the cement plant’s impact on a water body, located close to the project site. The expert committee was mandated to verify the ground situation and factors that would impact the water body, referred to in the complaints by the local people. It was also to oversee the implementation of the project in accordance with the environment impact assessment and environmental management plan submitted by the company. The expert visited the site in early February.

It was found that in the proposal for the cement plant submitted by Nirma for environmental clearance, the 268 hectares of land was classified as wasteland, as listed in the revenue records. In actual fact, satellite imageries from 2000 show that the area as “wetland”. It would seem that Nirma has submitted an interpretation diagram based on satellite imagery and not the satellite imagery itself. Had the proposal included the satellite imagery, the true nature of the land would have been clear.

The expert committee is of the view that there are alternate sites in the vicinity, on which there is no contention for relocating the project.