Sterlite plant to restart production today

CHENNAI: Sterlite's copper smelter plant in Tuticorin will restart production on Sunday. After the Supreme Court refused to stay the National Green Tribunal order permitting it to start operations, the company along with the tribunal-appointed panel has been working on reopening the plant that was shut on the orders of the state pollution control board.


"The plant is ready to start production and the process will begin from Sunday in the presence of the four green tribunal panel members," Sterlite Copper CEO P Ramnath told TOI.

Since June 7 when the panel members visited the plant, company has been working to restart the plant. "All the process needed to restart production at the copper smelter has been almost completed. We will restart the plant in the presence of the panel members on Sunday. A member from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) did not accompany the panel on its first visit to the plant on June 7. But during subsequent visits, the TNPCB member also formed part of the panel," said Ramnath.

The members of the panel are IIT-Madras professors P S T Pai and Liji Philip, Central Pollution Control Board member-secretary J S Kamyotra and a member from the TNPCB, mostly its member-secretary. The Supreme Court on June 10 refused to stay the green tribunal order permitting Sterlite to restart the smelter. The green tribunal is to hear the case against Sterlite in July.

The smelter was shut down on March 30 by the TNPCB following allegations of a poisonous gas leak and the district administration also disconnected the power connection, which has since been restored following the tribunal and court orders. "We will be able to ship our production only after a week's time and hope to attain the maximum capacity of 30,000 tonnes per month subsequently," said Ramnath.